Class Balance - why?

[Fanaelialae]

The other way around is also reasonable. For example, we have had rogues with scrolls and Use Magic Device when there were no wizards.

Neither can replace the other perfectly, but that is as it should be.

It's not anywhere near equivalent.

The wizard has a limited ability to do the rogue's job better than the rogue can. Knock and Invisibility, for example, are low level and essentially guaranteed success.

On the other hand, the rogue has to spend skill points to have UMD, has a more limited resource (magic items, which cost gold and he can't craft himself) and has a greater chance of failure (unless you build a UMD rogue, those UMD checks aren't automatic until higher levels).

That's not remotely close.

 

[Belphanior]

So you can play without a rogue.

In case there is no rogue? In case the guy playing a rogue is an acrobat/swashbuckler type instead of a dungeon crawler? After all, if one of your four or so doesn't want to play that type of rogue, doors may still need to be unlocked.

As an aside, a party that relies on wizard knock spells instead of skills may be in a world of hurt if locks are sufficiently common in the campaign or if the DM is a fan of nasty traps.

That doesn't explain why the wizard gets all these options. Why not the fighter? Or the barbarian? Or, more reasonably, the ranger or bard? A wizard/cleric/druid who puts his mind to it can more or less replace any other class (with some exceptions, like wizards and healing) after a certain point. But the reverse is not true. Why can't the fighter replace the druid? Why can't the monk replace the cleric? Why is the wizard a better generalist than the bard?

And again, how will a new player identify these issues? It's all well and good to say that Knock and Invisibility and whatnot shouldn't be used if there's a rogue in the party, but why don't the books says so? Why is every option and ability given to the wizard without any word of warning? This is not how you make a good game.

 

[DonTadow]

Players can get as creative as they want. They typically do have counters for Web. Unless the DM is metagaming though, your average monster won't. There are spells that are more effective against players than monsters (save or die), but Web is the reverse. I'd be very surprised to discover a Rust Monster carrying a torch or vial of acid in its back pocket, for example.

If I have to give all of my monsters a common counter to a specific spell, chances are that spell is broken.



So your argument for why the crafting feats are balanced is that the DM contrive to prevent players from using them under reasonable circumstances? I'm sorry, but that strikes me as unreasonable.

It's like saying that a monster that's vastly overpowered for its CR is okay because the DM should know never to use it, except in the most unique circumstances. Well, no, any inexperienced DM is going to have to find that out the hard way because there's nothing in any of the books to even suggest that.



3e, in particular, was designed to be flexible. NPCs are often designed with class levels. Are NPCs similarly going to hold back because they want to uphold this spirit of cooperation? I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of killer DMs out there who would object to that idea.

A party of martial characters going against a party of casters would get creamed in 3e (after the first few levels, and maybe even then). Sure, they might get one or two of the casters, but it only takes one caster to destroy the entire team of martial characters. You can't say the same about the martial characters.

I really don't understand why people are against the idea of balance. It is not synonymous with homogeneity, which I could understand taking issue with. I'm not saying that things need to be balanced to the point where two classes are indistinguishable. I am saying that it should be balanced to a higher standard than 3e was.

I"m actually all for balance, just not those arguments.I actually support your argument, just not there. I don't think any game should be balanced for some one who wants to play against the nature of the game.

Balance is Imperative in this next phase of the game. A group of mages should be equal in power to a group of fighters in every faccet of the game (or at least be able to build a character that can be). Crafting just shouldn't be in the game unless a future supplement. I really don't see any reason to it. It's a mini game where players try to save money buy making random chance rolls and sacraficing skills and feats.

I support a class system that is pretty stripped down. Then you have a set of feats/special abilities in archetypes and yo ucan choose one each level. It's much easier to balance abilities and powers when the level distribution is equal and you can plainly see what someone can do at a particular level.

 

[Hassassin]

It's not anywhere near equivalent.

The wizard has a limited ability to do the rogue's job better than the rogue can. Knock and Invisibility, for example, are low level and essentially guaranteed success.

On the other hand, the rogue has to spend skill points to have UMD, has a more limited resource (magic items, which cost gold and he can't craft himself) and has a greater chance of failure (unless you build a UMD rogue, those UMD checks aren't automatic until higher levels).

That's not remotely close.

A wizard uses a limited resource to do something the rogue can do for free. The rogue can take 20 at Open Lock; the Wizard isn't silent with Invisibility. The wizard isn't better here.

The rogue can't replace the wizard anywhere near perfectly, but properly equipped he can do the things a party would otherwise "need" a wizard for. Like identify, dispel magic or something.

It's not equivalent in any sense, but both are useful things for a party with no member of the other class, and shouldn't come into play much otherwise.

 

[Aldarc]

Umm... You don't? That's the point.

But the fact that wizards have spells so you can play without a rogue inherently suggests that you do need "rogues" to make the party function. Neither rogues or wizards with rogue-substitute spells should be necessary for parties. That's my point.

 

[Hassassin]

But the fact that wizards have spells so you can play without a rogue inherently suggests that you do need "rogues" to make the party function. Neither rogues or wizards with rogue-substitute spells should be necessary for parties. That's my point.

There are certain things a party is expected to be able to do. Opening locked stuff is one. For most of those it's nice to have options, like a rogue, knock and a hammer, for example.

What would your fix be? Remove locks from the game? Give everyone the chance to open them? In either case aren't you robbing the rogue something?

 

[nightwyrm]

But the fact that wizards have spells so you can play without a rogue inherently suggests that you do need "rogues" to make the party function. Neither rogues or wizards with rogue-substitute spells should be necessary for parties. That's my point.

As long as you have abilities restricted by class, you're gonna need a certain combination of classes or builds of classes in order to have access to all those abilities.

 

[jbear]

While I agree that balanced classes shouldn't upset people who don't care about balance, the issue is that designing balanced classes isn't always easy, and sometimes efforts to balance classes (or monster powers, or whatever) ruin the feel.

For instance, 4E's Fighters do (arguably) feel like Wizards, with their daily martial exploits that feel (at least a bit) like Vancian spells, and medusas that don't actually petrify with their gaze don't feel like the Medusa of myth, etc.

Good game balance doesn't come free, so going for balance can cost you something in other parts of the game.

4e fighters feel like wizards? How are you getting that exactly?

This comment is completely off base. Having played 4e extensively, including having played both fighters and wizards, I can assure you I didn't feel like I was playing a wizard when playing my fighter character, nor did I feel like a fighter when playing my wizard.

When I played a wizard I could summon spheres of burning flame and cause explosions of freezing cold at a distance. I could even turn my enemies into frogs.

When I played a fighter I got in the face of my enemies, smashed their faces with my big massive sword, forced them to face me or be smashed in the face again. He laughed when his enemies pummeled his body as the reserves of his energy ran deeper than a mountain stream.

My fighter was every bit as cool as my fighter. Is that what you are talking about? Or just because fighters get a daily power?

 

[Elf Witch]

OK. But I don't believe this is what the (pre-4e) complaints about wizards are about, though.

Preciously few people think that blasting spells were the problem. A fighter might kill a guy every round. Sure. And the wizard can spend a limited resource to kill, say, two guys a round. Still no problem.

Unfortunately, the wizard can also spend a limited resource to bypass the entire encounter. Troll under a bridge wants toll? No problem, wizard can teleport and bypass the journey. Adventure requires you to seek out a forgotten library for ancient knowledge? Haha, no, just cast a spell and gain the knowledge directly. Adventure requires us to undertake a task to prove our worth to someone? Yeah... no, how about a nice Charm/Suggestion instead? Venture through a maze? Passwall/Stoneshape/Etherealness/god-knows-what-else can shortcut you to the end.

This is what the balance problem is.

Did 4e solve this?
Yes!

Did 4e take this too far?
Up to individual taste, but clearly there's enough people who feel that it did. So it warrants another look.

But...

But!

Don't ever think that the cries of "imbalance!" came from the amount of damage dealt or people killed per round. That was never the problem.

I guess I just don't understand this part of the issue at all. Okay so a wizard can teleport when they are able to do fifth level spells which is not until 9 level and even then they can't teleport the entire party. So I don't see how the wizard is just getting around the encounter with the troll under the bridge.

And just who has an issue with this the other players or the DM? If it is the other players well since they have to be willing to be teleported they can simply refuse. If the DM is the one with the issue he can accept that it can happen and plan for he can take it out of his game. But the dM needs to accept that players will find ways around carefully crafted encounters.

As for all your other examples bards can use bardic knowledge to find that ancient library clerics can use spells to make the maze easier.

You brought up using etherealness which both clerics and wizards get. Wizards can get it at 16 level but they can only change themselves and one other person then at 19 level they can take two and epic level of 22 can take three. That is hardly over powered or game breaking at that level.

Most of these things that people claim make very little sense to me what the wizard is going to cast these spells and leave most of the party behind?

Also in my groups no just does things we say I can do this and the entire party decides if they want to do it. So a simple balancing thing is the party says no we don't want to bypass this using magic. If the wizards goes ahead fine they are now separated from the party. If that happened in my game I would give the rest of the party the most attention leaving the player playing the wizard with little to do.

I have found that players in my games want the wizard to have the ability to do spells like web and other spells that help the party with encounters. Teleport was used recently in our game to so the wizard could teleport back the warlock who had been level drained by a vampire to a temple to get help we were to far from any help otherwise. Without he would have suffered permanent level drain.

All these example people give me are usually things that take place at higher levels and really don't allow the wizard to just run roughshod over the party.

 

[FireLance]

There are certain things a party is expected to be able to do. Opening locked stuff is one. For most of those it's nice to have options, like a rogue, knock and a hammer, for example.

What would your fix be? Remove locks from the game? Give everyone the chance to open them? In either case aren't you robbing the rogue something?

Or, let the rogue do it quickly, quietly and cheaply, and every other character's options lose one or more of the advantages.

A big hammer is cheap, but it won't be quick or quiet.

A knock spell/ritual is (relatively) quiet, but if it's cheap, it should not be quick, and if it's quick, it should not be cheap.

Of course, if there are no time constraints, quick is less of an issue, and if there is no danger of detection, quiet is not an issue, either.

The other variable you can play with is chance of success. Maybe the rogue's chance to pick locks is better than whatever the wizard can do with a quick spell (as opposed to an expensive, time-consuming ritual). Or perhaps, to encourage teamwork, the wizard is better off using his spell to help the rogue than using it to try and pick the lock himself.