Class Balance - why?

[Gronin]

Well......

There are a lot of reasons why we should bring up previous editions, especially in a proposed unity edition. I also believe that balance is important, not at the cost 4e incurred which was to me, classes playing relatively the same. Others disagree, hence the talk about editions.

I believe that classes should be balanced. But not strictly ONLY balanced with combat. I believe that the skill needed to sneak into a castle, and the skill needed to sweet talk a king is just as useful as the skill needed to fry an orc. As a DM I have seen characters with strong non combat skills bypass whole dungeons and have awarded them the XP for bypassing that encounter (following RAW and RAI as I see it).

I believe a D&D that gives the players a variety of abilities makes for more fun and engaging adventures. I also believe balancing across a range of features allows for truly different class options and not just a tacked on skill and non combat system that doesnt feel a part of the "one true combat system". I believe that 2e, 3e, and 4e had illustrative examples on why with this was so and we should take the best elements of the past to form a better DND-Next.

So I believe when you say "It should also be mentioned that it is not necessary for balanced classes to be the same as one another" you need to be more specific. If all classes follow the exact same progression, use the same amount of powers, gain powers at the same time, and have relatively simple, mostly combat powers then the game will be very balanced. But I personally believe that the classes will "be the same".

What degree of balance do you mean exactly? The kind where its somewhat balanced in a VARIETY of situations but of course there are exceptions and errors that should to be revised and errated on occasion (a la 2e and 3e?). Or the kind where the classes are very very balanced but some people think the classes are too similar and the balance is at the cost of focusin only on combat (a la 4e)? It's easy to say your for balance and different classes, but its a lot harder when you start taking into account the different ways classes progress, act mechanically, gain powers, and act in a variety of situations.

Okay fair enough -- you make a valid point regarding there being a need for some reference to earlier editions.

Now as to a balance -- I am in complete agreement that balance doesn't only have to be a combat thing and that balance can come in the form of skill benefits or other areas. That being said, combat is a big part of the majority of campaigns and as such all classes should be able to contribute in meaningful ways to the fight.

To be completely honest I don't have the answer I am simply stating what I would like to see in an ideal game. I do understand that there are certain sacrifices that need to be made in order to get a balanced set of characters.

As a side note and yes a reference to earlier editions and complaints of a lack of balance --- I have never been all that unhappy with how balanced any particular class was in any edition. Nor have I felt that all the classes were the same in 4th Ed. Although I generally DM when I play I have never been interested in playing Wizards and rarely interested in Clerics. I usually play a fighter or rogue and I have never felt like I wasn't contributing. That being said I am a min/max type of player (I also love to role play) and I have a fairly large personality at the table so I really don't ever feel left out.

Finally I am not a game designer (although like most of us I do tinker) and I cannot spend all day trying to work through this problem. I am going to put my trust in a very talented group of people and hope that they can come up with a solution that I find satisfactory. If they don't then my solution is simple -- I do not need to buy.

Finally I would like to say that I hope nobody was offended by what I said earlier and that I always enjoy reading posts on ENWorld -- I may not always agree but it is nice to see such an active group of people all of whom a trying to make the game we all love better. I would encourage everyone to throw their two cents worth in any time they have something to say --- it's kind of like voting if you don't participate in the process you have no right to complain about the results.

 

[Aenghus]

I want classes to be balanced, but a certain sort of balance. It's ok for particular classes to have specialities, but I never want classes to be useless.

All or nothing drawbacks don't produce balance, they produce frustration. at best, train wrecks at worst.

Anti magic fields, sneak attack not working at all on certain monsters, monsters being totally immune to weapons, burning or stealing spellbooks - these all can be used to hose particular PCs in various D&D editions. And I hate them all. Feeling useless till the DM-imposed plot device is turned off is not a fun game experience.

I am not saying bad stuff can't happen to PCs. But the only fun I see in depriving players of the game experience wanted by selecting a particular class is of the "Sucks to be you" sort, and I think thats badwrongfun.

I could live with some sort of situational penalty to class abilites, but just arbitrarily turning them all off is a bad mechanic.

 

[Siberys]

(A note; I skimmed the thread, sorry. If this has been said already... well, consider this a +1, then)

IMV, class balance is important because D&D is a game. Given a particular level, any character of any class should be on roughly equal footing, because otherwise gameplay will suffer. If you really want to replicate the 'super powerful magic user' there is a way to do that without shifting the balance to be heavily in favor of the casters - you have casters be a higher level than noncasters. It's built right into the system. Level is, after all, a measure of power, no? No need to confuse the game mechanics to do something you can easily do by handing the casters a few extra levels.

Not that I'd do that. It seems counterproductive to my sensibilities. YMMV, though.

 

[billd91]

These debates are always a little like watching a train wreck, in part, because so many people sling around so many extreme and ultimately goofy arguments.

Is anybody saying all forms of class balance are bad? No. But how far is too far? What methods will people accept? I'd argue that 4e took things too far or used the wrong method given that WotC is already turning around on playtesting an edition that is intended to appeal to non-4e players as well as 4e players. So we should look at the 4e solution to healing the rift as suspect.


On extreme cases
These tend to crop up in these discussions a lot. You're going to get them in rule systems in which you have choices. Take a look at GURPS and Champions. Characters are perfectly balanced right? They all start with exactly the same number of points. But characters are all built with lots of choices before the players, including the choice to build characters in completely opposite directions leaving them incredible unbalanced with each other. Why should we expect any edition of D&D that involves any meaningful choices in character building be any different? And yeah, you see it in 4e too despite efforts to blunt the effect. Differences may not be as pronounced as in 3e, I suppose, but you still see them.

Extreme cases, the kinds you see with hard-nosed optimizers red line the system like drag racers red line engines. An engine that works perfectly fine for most applications won't work well for a drag racer. D&D is not a drag racing engine. It never has been and it probably shouldn't be one in its most common form. Let 3rd party publishers handle that sort of thing with alternative sub-systems published under an OGL.


On the topic of the sensibility of starting a wizard with anything lower than a 20: you realize that the default method in 3x (and every edition prior to that, I believe) was to roll dice to get your scores. You didn't get to choose to have a 20 in your Intelligence. You had to get pretty lucky. Alternative methods of generating stats are house rules - they may be options listed in a DMG somewhere, but choosing to use them instead of the default assumption is in house-rule territory. Make that choice and your balance-favoring house rule starts to cause imbalance by making that 20 in Intelligence a common occurrence instead of a statistical rarity. Fortunately, point buy isn't even 4e's default stat generation method. That's a standard array. Admittedly, it's designed to give the optimizer an 18, but that's still lower than 20.


On the Oberroni fallacy
Man, if I had a nickel every time someone bandied that about. Using good DM judgment and advocating same isn't a use of the Oberroni fallacy. Making sure PCs don't get unbalancing gear before it's no longer unbalancing used to be part of the art of good DMing. That +6 stat booster? Most PCs won't be able to afford it, if using the published guidelines, until they're over 10th level anyway. So, is following the published guidelines using the Oberroni fallacy? I'm confused.

If advocating good DMing and game management is somehow now a logical fallacy, D&D has come a long way and not in a good direction.


Game Balance - or meta balance
Whether or not an edition of D&D is balanced depends an awful lot on how you expect an RPG to be balanced and not just mechanically. How should the game balance between being a simulation of a fantasy world and a game of manipulated pieces within a rule structure. How much should the game's rules define what can be done or how much help should they offer a DM trying to operationalize the actions his players want to take?

There's always been some gamism in D&D rules, there has to be. But the balance has been shifting, particularly over the life of 3e, away from simulationism and toward gamism. And the effect has been a mixed bag. 3.5 nerfed a number of magical effects to promote a certain view of combat gamism that has reached its ultimate expression so far in 4e. 3.0's streamlining of spellcasting and initiative, gamist moves to be sure, reduced spellcaster vulnerability compared to martial classes. Taking all of a character's iterative attacks at one, also a gamist move, pushes the game into swingier combat resolution territory. The shift in the gamist direction have, as far as I can tell, only led to more and more of it in an attempt to fix the problems it has caused. Yet the gamist shift seems to include a limit to its appeal. If it didn't, I don't think we would be talking about 5e this early.

With a more simulationist approach, it's OK for game balance to be a lot fuzzier. Magic should be magical and be functionally unlimited, not nerfed so it doesn't leave the fighter behind. Let the limitations fall on the caster attempting to wield it by making it harder on him even if means having mechanics that aren't as smooth or easy to use from a gamist perspective. It's OK for a fighter to not have the same bizarre things he can do that the wizard has, compared to fantasy literature, the D&D fighter is still holding his own with pretty awesome feats that you'll rarely even see Conan do.

Personally, I come down on the side of simulationism way more than I come down on the gamist side. I'm OK with more imbalance between characters than people on the gamist side. I look at D&D as having evolved from wargames and aspiring to much more as a result. 4e, to me, is an evolutionary throwback in focus even if its mechanics have advanced further than earlier editions of D&D. In an RPG, the rules serve to provide a basis for the genre simulation in a reasonably fair manner. That's all I care for them to do and, as a result, don't mind a certain amount of imbalance that helps reinforce the genre.

 

[stevelabny]

This cannot be stopped. Not every adventure has some sort of time limit. In fact, most don't.

DMG says its the DM's job to make the game fun for everyone and stop spotlight hogging. Adding a time limit isn't hard. I see in your response elsehwere you added a ONE MONTH time limit to one of your adventures, your party blew the deadline and rather than have any negative consequences at all you just let them get away with it. That is an epic failure of DMing.

Why should the player's leave the Wizard behind?

Because the players know its cheesing the rules? Or more importantly because the CHARACTERS see it as as boring, dishonorable, and cowardly? Because if anyone ever lives to tell the tale of these victories, the next set of enemies will do everything they can to mess with a teleport in, one fight, teleport out strategy? (Like: re-arrange the furniture!)

It's not about killing team morale. Most of the time when I prepared knock, silence and invisibility it was because I either knew we were going on a stealth mission...and the Rogue may be stealthy, but generally no one else is. Or I took it as a backup in case we ran into anything the Rogue couldn't succeed on. OR I took it because we didn't have a Rogue and we could simply replace one with spells instead.

If you don't have a rogue, replacing rogue skills is not a problem. If you know in advance that you are going on a stealth mission and bring stealth spells to help the non-rogues in the party, this is not a problem. If the wizard always have utility spells memorized 'just in case' or carry along an unlimited amount of utility scrolls (miraculously at the ready and not requiring a rummage-through-the-backpack-round) he is just not being a people-person. Maybe he has a 6 charisma to balance his 20 int and he's just playing it up.

It doesn't really balance them, however. Most Wizards have enough spells at high levels with a 30 Int

Now its up to 30? Let's powergame the system till it breaks and then call it broken.

to easily handle surprise encounters and at least 3 or 4 encounters before running out of spells.

Not with the kind of encounter-wiping power you've been describing. They may be able to dominate 1 or 2 encounters, but by 3 and 4 they're just helping out.

Silence isn't an issue for most Wizards as there are a number of spells with no verbal components whose purpose it is to get them out of silence.

There are. But are those the ones you prepared today? Or is your intel so good that you knew to expect silence today and prepared only spells with no verbal component. You poo-poo this but it is a pretty serious limiter.

Plus, they have good saves so the spell doesn't work directly on them. You need to cast it on some object and bring it close.

Not usually that hard, unless this supreme wizards also fly every combat?

I'd like you to point out to me in the book where it says the DM is required to throw out decoy encounters and steal the Wizard's spellbook and spell components. This isn't spelled out in the book at all.

Sure it is. It specifically says a wizard must have his spellbook to memorize spells and provides lists of spell components. I think rules are also provided for saving throws for spellbooks? Anyone who knows anything about magic will know about these requirements and therefore targeting these two items is just as viable a strategy as casting silence. It is not required anymore than any other good strategy from the bad guys is required. If a DM just moves his monsters 30 feet forward every round and uses their most powerful available ability without any strategy, that is another epic failure. And another great example of why the DM is necessary and two different DMs can still run completely different "perfectly balanced" encounters.

You have a DM, but a DM can't predict everything, nor should be be expected to. Nor do I want to, as the DM spend extra effort to make an encounter simply because there is a Wizard in the group.

Can't predict everything sure is a a far leap from there's a wizard. And as a DM, you should know what spells your wizard has learned.

I want to be able to plan out an encounter without knowing what characters are playing at all.

So, for example, rangers in a campaign you run might never see their favored enemy? You might want this, but this is a horrible thing to want.

I want to be able to look at the book and say "This adventure takes place near a volcano, I bet a battle against 4 Fire Elementals would be fun" without then later finding out that the Wizard has the ability to make the entire party immune to fire and therefore immune to all the damage in the encounter.

But just from knowing that Protection from Fire spells exist, you should know this is a possibility even if you are running an adventure for strangers.

The monsters should be able to threaten ANY party of their CR or lower.

No, no, no. Sometimes there are favorable and unfavorable "matchups" Especially so if the party is 4 wizards or 4 rogues or 4 fighters or 4 clerics. A roomful of undead should be easier for 4 undead-hating clerics than 4 anything else.

You do realize that so many people complained that the Rogue's sneak attack didn't work against undead and plants so that any campaign where a DM chose those as the primary monster was no fun to play in that they changed it in 4e so that you could sneak attack plants and undead just fine.

Yes, I do realize that 4e continued the trend of catering to whiny brats. That's why 4e failed and I'm posting in a 5e thread!

Mod Note: Name calling is grounds for expulsion from a thread, folks. Don't do this. ~Umbran

I have a friend who after 3 sessions in a row of fighting undead immediately retired his character because he was tired of feeling useless and switched to a Wizard instead.

You have a friend with another HORRIBLE DM. Why would he have 3 entire sessions of fighting undead without giving the thief something to do?

Drawbacks are fun when they add an interesting complication. They aren't fun when they are crippling. For instance, having your +2 sword stolen and having to rely on a non magical sword for a session can be an interesting diversion. In that the total change in your character is a +2 bonus to hit.

Having your wife kidnapped in the game and having to go rescue her is a fun roleplaying draw back. Removing your ability to use all spells and reducing you to a fighter with a bad BAB and only the ability to wield a dagger is downright insulting and mean.

Um, wait. If your spell components were lost, what happened to all those magic items and scrolls you were telling me about? If your spell book was stolen, you might still have stuff memorized from this morning. Temporarily reducing your ability to cast spells is not insulting or mean.
Also, see how the fighter in your example has a backup sword, or at least a dagger in his boot? Why is your wizard so one-dimensional? Wouldn't it have been nice to spend a few stat-points or feats for versatility rather than min-max the game to death?


The power gamer mindset of "I can make PunPun, so therefore the system is broken" is incorrect. PunPun is cute as a thought experiment but anyone who actually brings him to the table should be beaten repeatedly around the face with a mackerel.

Class balance needs to be "If 4 normal people who arent trying to cheese everything they do play 4 different classes, and the DM is semi-competent at understanding table dynamics are they all getting to do interesting things every session" and not "If 4 bored power gamers exploit every loophole in the rules and the DM let's them get away with it to protect 'his story' then clearly the rules need to be more rigid to balance everything out. That way lies MADNESS. Or, in a best case scenario, sameness. Which also stinks.

 

[Spatula]

Why should a magic-user and fighter or rouge and cleric all be comparable in power at the same levels?

Because they're all being played by real, live people that are engaged in a friendly, cooperative, and fun gaming experience.

It doesn't mean that all classes need to be exactly the same. I think that ideally, each player should have the capability to contribute equally to any facet of the game that is going to take up a lot of playing time. Whether a player chooses to exercise that capability or not is up the player, and not determined for them by hidden assumptions of the rules.

 

[Elf Witch]

I have to agree with those who say that magic was broken (or at the very least, eminently breakable) prior to 4e, with 3e being the worst offender. There were plenty of save or suck spells that didn't even really allow a save (such as Web, which was a death sentence for most creatures). The easy availability of scroll and wand crafting also contributed heavily (why bother instituting daily limits if you're going to allow them to be so easily circumvented). Gold and xp were not real limits, as gold was plentiful if you follow RAW/RAI and XP costs were quite marginal.

That isn't to say that you couldn't play a group friendly wizard, or one who fought with one hand tied behind his back so as not to upset other group members, but it's a bit silly to expect everyone to do this.

Web does have a save if you make it you move through the web slowly. if you tangled you can spend a round using strength or escape artist to break free. I have never seen web as an death sentence all that often usually it just slowed down the other guys to give you a chance to get away. I have never seen a PC die in a web Evards Black Tentacles yes web no.

Yes the rules for scribing scrolls and making magic items are relatively cheap in 3E an Issue I have with it but and this is a big but unless you are allowing your party huge amounts of downtime there is a limit of how many you can make. And that is not just the DM being a meanie it is way of managing the flow of the game.

It is my opinion everyone should play a friendly wizard. fighter , rogue fill in the blank as a player you have a responsibility not to be a jerk at the table which means doing things that impact another player's character and stepping all over their toes.

I play party friendly wizards all the time and I don't play with one hand tied behind my back.

 

[Niccodaemus]

Most D&D games spend 50-80% of the game in combat. .

Whoa. Keep me away from those games.

 

[Belphanior]

On the Oberroni fallacy
Man, if I had a nickel every time someone bandied that about. Using good DM judgment and advocating same isn't a use of the Oberroni fallacy. Making sure PCs don't get unbalancing gear before it's no longer unbalancing used to be part of the art of good DMing. That +6 stat booster? Most PCs won't be able to afford it, if using the published guidelines, until they're over 10th level anyway. So, is following the published guidelines using the Oberroni fallacy? I'm confused.

If advocating good DMing and game management is somehow now a logical fallacy, D&D has come a long way and not in a good direction.

Respectfully, but you may need to read that particular conversation a bit better. That line of conversation entirely hinged on a miscommunication between Majoru Oakheart and Elf Witch.

 

[Elf Witch]

I was just talking with my roommate who DMs our Age of Worms campaign and she told me that DMing the rogue is the most challenging for her. He has built his character very well so he is doing major damage in most combat he does more damage then out frontline fighter who is a cleric. His AC is so high she can't hit him that often

She admits letting him take certain PRCs and commission certain magical items has made him to powerful. She is always worried that by trying to challenge him she is going to kill the rest of us.

She said that if she didn't have years of playing under her belt (this is her second time behind the screen) she would assume that rogues are the most OP of all the classes and that needed to be nerfed.

I think that she has a very valid point our experiences at the table shape how we view balance and what is OP.

One of my biggest issues with 4E is how they tried to balance classes and made the game a snoozefest for some of us. The classes are all the same and therefore bland. It is one reason I dislike point buy so much because all fighters start to look the same the same with wizards and other classes.

I know the argument for it that it is more fair because then everyone is equal and you don't get a range of stats.

I guess because my experience has never seen an issue with this because the person with the highest stats didn't rule the game. The only possible issue I could see is if two people were trying to play identical characters then it could make the person with the lower stats feel that they are not as good as the higher stated character.

For me I have no desire to play in a game where balance is derived from making everyone equal on everything. That is not balance to me. Balance comes from allowing each character a chance to contribute to the game just because the fighter may only be taking down one enemy at a time and the wizard can take out more does not mean that they are unbalanced.

Fighters fight with a weapon they stand there and go toe to toe with the monsters and if there is a way to build a fighter that can cleave through his enemies they can kill more than one thing a round. That is what an iconic fighter does in fantasy he is the brave one risking life and limb to go toe to toe with the bad guys.

Wizards can't go toe to toe and expect to live very long they can throw magic and try and take out more creatures in one round and if you get in close quarters fighting he won't be able to use his area spells as effectively. In close quarters fighting it is the fighters, rogues and monks who really get to shine. The magic users are moving around trying not to get hit and having to combat cast spells or concentrate to get spells off after taking damage.