Class Balance - why?

[serch]

The "BMX Bandit/ Angel Summonerthing" is a great (and funny!) parallel that I've seen at table playing 3.5 especially. However, it doesn't need to be that way -- Pathfinder did make some REALLY good strides at an example of useful casters who don't dominate all areas of play. It's not "end all and be all", of course, but I was impressed to the extent they nerfed key wizard and cleric spells to keep the "I win" buttons to a minimum. Finger of death, all the polymorph spells, not to mention the edits to concentration checks, just a few of the changes to rein in casters a bit from some of the nasty tricks that could be pulled in 3.5.

Also hero points give a good chance to non-magical classes to face enemy casters. Hehe some antihero points to main antagonists may work too.

 

[billd91]

If these people don't care about mechanical balance, then why are they so opposed to the people who do want balanced classes? That's what puzzles me.

I think it's partly a question of what you lose by pursuing it, particularly in the 4e case. There are a variety of ways to pursue balance. 3e pursues it (or at least tries to) more than 1e and 2e did, but some of the other gamist changes built in to streamline the game ended up working against that. (Such as how much easier it is for a caster to cast without interruptions in 3e with cyclical initiatives and standard action casting times compared to 2e's round-by-round initiative and declaring your action before the initiative is rolled.)

I can understand, at least partly, why 4e's design team put all PCs on the same power and action structure. It's easier to do it that way. But it's also unsatisfying for players who want their fantasy RPG archetypes to behave in different ways and feel different. But the more different the powers and abilities are, the harder they are to directly compare and be sure they are balanced.

Moreover, focusing on the mechanical balance of the PCs, depending on how it is done, may alter the balance of the game between simulationist and gamist elements. For a simulationist, magic should be pretty magical and be largely open ended in what effects it can produce. It's magic after all. Put too much effort into balance and the magic gets watered down. You get the same thing if you spend too much time with character class niche protection too, so that's not a situation limited solely to 4e. This creates a certain kind of imbalance in that casters have a broader palette of options to choose from when dealing with an encounter - the more mundane ones such as negotiating, sneaking, and fighting their way through, as well as magical ones like flying, charming, teleporting, and so on. And ultimately, for someone who wants a simulation with significant magic, there's ultimately no getting around it. Casters get a suite of options the non-magical classes don't get no matter how much better a physical combatant a fighter is. Ultimately, this is even true in 4e, though 4e does offer up rituals to any character interested in investing in them.

Pathfinder, for example, leaves the magical power of magic mostly in its place but tries to inject balance in other ways. They could have gone a bit farther, I think improving some saving throws would help as would bumping more spells to 1 round casting times. And there are undoubtedly more ideas as well that we'll probably see in PF 2nd edition in another 7 years or so if Paizo predictions hold true.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I can understand, at least partly, why 4e's design team put all PCs on the same power and action structure. It's easier to do it that way. But it's also unsatisfying for players who want their fantasy RPG archetypes to behave in different ways and feel different. But the more different the powers and abilities are, the harder they are to directly compare and be sure they are balanced.

I was just wondering earlier today if a lot of people would be satisfied with a handful of such structures. That is, don't put everyone on the same structure. But don't make up something different every time a particular class doesn't exactly fit one of the structures, either.

Of course, I realize that is hard to answer without seeing the structures, with examples, but with four or five structures, carefully chosen to cover a subset of archetypes, at least the classes within a given structure can be balanced. If it turns out that one structure is a bit overpowered and another a bit under, it is easy enough for individual groups to either ban those structures--or depend upon house rules or social contract or DM adventure tailoring to mitigate the problem. If separate feel by caster versus non-caster is desired, could also restrict classes within given structures.

 

[Deadboy]

I am just tired of people tossing around wizards are broken as a hard fact not as an opinion. I think a lot comes down to playstyle and taste in playstyles.

I think this is the crux of the problem in this thread, and it cuts both ways. Whether a table has had problems with the class balance seems to largely come down to playstyle. One table may have players use the Wizard's abilities to their logical conclusion and thus reduced the fun of others, while another play Wizards along a power curve that feels more fair to other players. It all comes down to playstyle.

But there's several problems with that - at what percentage of tables experiencing problems and holding these opinions does it become an issue that needs to be addressed? Five percent? 25 percent? 50 percent? Even if its only five percent, isn't the fact that those players - maybe hundreds of them - are having an issue bad for the game? And isn't it also a problem that should players of the different playstyles cross, players of one playstyle may ruin the fun for players of others? Does it occur to you that maybe my playstyle may have been closer to your playstyle, if not for bad experiences I've had with players who have just used the Wizard to the fullest of its capabilities?

Is it really a good thing for D&D to only cater to the playstyles that don't utilize options to their fullest extent, even if those are the playstyles that are intended by the designers? Every player can't know how rules were intended, so if they see an advantage that's in the rules, the core rules no less, and use it, that should be a perfectly valid way to play the game.

From my perspective, its incumbent for the rules to encourage players to play the way designers intended it to be played, and not just throw whatever out there and hope that that players respect the intent.

Last, I do think it's hard fact that the Wizard is broken - in certain playstyles. I also think it's hard fact that the Wizard isn't broken - in different playstyles. It's my belief that a game should be designed to make sure the class is broken in as few playstyles as possible, or even preferably none at all.

4e succeeded at that, even if the way they succeeded wasn't to everyone's taste. Heck, I'm a 4e supporter but I won't try to hide its flaws - it DID go too far and sacrifice too much on the alter of balance. Giving everyone exactly the same AEDU progressions made the game insanely easy to balance but has created an impression (a mistaken one, in my opinion, but also not entirely invalid) that all the classes are the same. I also think it was a mistake to have not included more non-combat powers in the earliest versions of the game, creating the (also mistaken) impression that the game was all about combat.

 

[Dellamon]

It's all about not sucking. Why can't the fighter sneak around the flank while the wizards duke it out? (setting aside you once again mean to make the figher a luking flunkie while the wizard gets the glory)

Because the typical fighter sucks at it. Plate Armor and "seaking" are not things that go together in any logical or serious sentence without the words "has no chance of" being between them.

Reading through some of the posts, its very obvious that there is a lot of angst with the 3.5 fighter / wizard comparison. And that no two D&D games are alike. Some want a strong DM, others just want a ancillary player pushing monsters around for them to kill and speaking in funny voices for NPCs while reading from adventure text boxes. I think the play styles are really reflected in the responses to what they are looking for in terms of balance and from the game in general.

So why is pathfinder so popular? I don't play it, but from the responses, its really doing well. How did Paizo fix the fighter / wizard balance issue where it was so terribly broken in 3.5? I'm genuinely asking because I do not play Pathfinder and did not play much 3.5 - from the tone of a lot of folks here it was broken beyond repair and only 4E restored the balance.

And as for the comment above, please keep in mind I am speaking from a AD&D 1E standpoint (and I was not literally meaning "sneaking" - more just gaining the flank). Classes are not nearly as broken in that version of the game (and in C&C and other retro clones). Balance may not be as tight as it is in 4E, but it is still fun, even for those fools who enjoy playing fighters.

 

[Elf Witch]

Here's the deal. They are wrong but they aren't wrong at the same time. 3e lets you make a character however you want. However, it allows you to make a character that has a power level anywhere between 1 and 100. Fighters and non-magical characters are capped at a relative power of 10. Wizards and other casters are capped at 100.

So, when a person makes a character, they can make a Wizard of power level 10. They can purposefully choose poor spells and make character decisions to limit their power("I won't cast my big spell this combat, I'll let the rest of the party have their fun this time" or "I could prepare a spell that gives +1 to hit to the fighter and rogue or one that gives me +7 to hit and +5 damage, 2 extra attacks per round, and temporarily 40 more hitpoints...I'll take the first one"). And if they make these poor decisions, you won't notice how overpowered they are. Because on an average round, they aren't doing anything extravagant. And the one or two rounds a day where they outperform everyone else, people shrug and say "They are a wizard, they are supposed to be better than us."

But in campaigns where players look at the rules and take the absolute best thing they are allowed....you have clerics, wizards, and druids who are performing at the near the 100 level.

I'm not saying that you are stupid. I'm saying that people in a certain mindset don't even consider better options. They don't think in terms of numbers. So when looking at a choice between the above +1 to hit to 2 of their allies and much bigger bonuses for themselves, they think "I want to be a team player, I'll take the bonus to my allies."

Other players look at the spells and thing "Wait, if I give them a +1 to hit, that's only a 5% chance of having any effect each round...maybe more if they get 5 attacks per round. If they don't roll exactly 1 number below what they need to hit, my spell does nothing. On the other hand +7 to hit is a 35% greater chance to hit, which, due to my poor bonus to hit in the first place has more effect statistically than giving it to someone who already had a better bonus. And with the 2 extra attacks per round, it comes into effect 4 times, since I already had 2 attacks. If I hit 4 times with the extra damage, I do way more damage than the Rogue would do if I gave the bonus to him. I'll add the bonus to myself, because it is MUCH more effective. And anything that is much for effective for me is better for the party."

Not everyone thinks in the way that causes them to come to the second conclusion. Some people are happy playing a 10 out of 100 Wizard, either because it never occurred to them to try for more or out of a sense of fairness for their DM or the other players.

But my point is that if you have a game that everyone plays, you cannot expect all of the players to limit themselves to 1/10th of the power they are capable of simply out of a sense of fairness. Not everyone has that sense.

And the problem gets bigger when you consider the Fighters who aren't that concerned with power gaming their Fighters. Then you get the fighters who are power level 3 or 4 out of 100. And then the difference is seen to be even bigger. As a quick example: A 11th level fighter who started with a 14 strength for roleplaying reasons and didn't add any points to his strength and whose DM never gave him more than a +1 weapon and who took roleplaying oriented feats and gear will have +14 to hit for 1d12+3 points of damage. A 10th level fighter who started with a 20 str, added all his points in it, got a hold of a +6 stat enhancer and a +3 weapon and took feats to make himself better has +25 to hit for 1d12+16. That means the first one has an average damage of 28.5 damage if they hit with all their attacks. The second one has an average damage of 77.5....nearly 3 times as much. And hits 55% more often. Although, compare that to the 375 points of damage the Wizard does in the same round.

Best to make the game force the casters to have a power of 10 out of 10 and then, when the rest of your group consists of people who are 4s or 5s out of 10, they don't feel nearly as left behind.

Why is it that people keep implying that since I don't fins wizards broken I must be playing with a hand tied behind my back that I am choosing not to take the best spells?

I play with a few powergamers and anything combined the right way can break the game and cause a major imbalance at the table and make the rest of the party feel like henchmen. And the interesting thing the people making these monster characters never use wizard at the base they use cleric, druids and classes from the splat books. They have muliclassing down to a science.

Now using the logic that I see so many wizards are broken people use this mean multiclassing is broken.

In the hands of a min maxer anything can be broken.


In your example of the fighter and the wizard is a perfect example of what happens in a game where you have people who make role playing characters and others who make optimized characters. You can easily change that to an optimized fighter and role playing wizard who only has a 14 in intelligence at that point the wizard won't get any spell higher then fifth.

Right now I play a wizard in our Age of Worms game because we had a sorcerer I choose not to play her as blaster she is all about knowledge, utility spells and party support.

The player playing our rogue is a powergamer has combined classes to make his rogue a combat monster. He routinely does more damage in combat than the party cleric or the paladin who replaced the cleric. So he not only has all the rogue niche stuff going on he also co opted the front line fighter position. His use magic device is now high enough that he is now using a wand of healing to heal himself and sometimes the rest of the party.

But again using the logic so many wizards are broken use this means rogues are also broken because they can out fight the fighters, heal the same as the clerics and now can use wands and scrolls to step on the wizard's niche.

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't want to get into the railroading debate again. Suffice to say, I don't believe railroading is bad. Also, nearly every thing a DM does is "railroading" by at least one definition of railroading.

I don't believe the situation is railroading, it doesn't force the PCs to do anything. It only limits their options. They have the option to talk to the bridge keeper or they have the option to turn around and go back. They have the option to trick the bridge keeper into letting them past or bribing him or negotiating or threatening him or complimenting him until he agrees. They can take the long way around the pit, finding a way that doesn't involve crossing the bridge. They can kill him and walk over the bridge.

All I want to do is limit their ability to bypass my NPC entirely.

This is all fine and dandy until your players find the loophole in your campaign that you didn't notice that allows them to skip 6 months of storyline you were planning for your campaign. Especially, if you wrote up extensive notes and maps, along with made NPCs and planned out monster encounters for that time.

I've had it happen 3 or 4 times now. Each and every time I had to resort to an Out of Character discussion with the party about how I didn't foresee them having that ability or trying that tactic and that it will cause too much damage to the whole campaign if they take that action. So much so that the storyline will be no fun for me, as the DM. And I refuse to run a game that isn't fun for me in addition to the players. So, I gave them 2 options...the only ones I could come up with: Take their action back or have someone else come up with a campaign and spend the effort to run it.

They took it back.

Luckily, I haven't had to have that conversation with anyone since 4e came out.

It's not about taking away free will, as I mention above. It's the difference between running a cop game in modern day earth...and an equivalent game where one of the characters is superman.

In the first game you can decide in advance that the villain killed the victim and is hiding out in a house on the south part of town. You can anticipate that the group will track down clues, talk to witnesses, eventually track the perp to his house, and have a shootout as the perp has a gun. But that the perp had an accomplice who there is no evidence of in the house or alley..so he'll be around as a villain for next time. You can then safely draw a map for the shootout, create stats for the perp and his accomplice, create the personalities of the witnesses as well as the gang member who knows what the perps name is and even start thinking about what kind of crimes the accomplice will do in the next adventure.

In the 2nd game, superman simply flies around the early until he reverses time to the point where the murder happens. Then stops the murder from ever occurring and catches the perp and his accomplice at the same time. You then have to throw out everything you had planned to do.

Saying "I don't want superman in my game, and I'm not going to allow it" isn't railroading anyone or taking away their choice. It's saying "I'd like to play a game that doesn't have to deal with the abilities of superman. I don't want every villain to have to carry kryptonite in their pockets just to have a game that I can keep some control over."

And that's what you have to do with a Wizard around. Every villain has to have the resources to block scrying, teleporting, death magic, invisibility, flying, dimensional traveling magic, and so one and so forth. Put it all together and it might as well be Kryptonite with how rare it SHOULD be, but how common it turns out to be, simply so that the Wizard doesn't have to be any less powerful.


Also, not sure where you're getting this one. The pathfinder version of teleport AND the 3.5e version are exactly the same in this case: You can teleport yourself and one extra person per 3 caster levels. A party of 4 can be teleported at 9th level(12th for a 5 person group). And by the time you are 12th level, with the bonus spell from a high stat, you can cast 4 of them a day, so you can go back and get another 4 people if your group is larger than that. I'm not talking about Epic games. I'm talking about 12-18th level games.

We had a wizard who was 14th level who used to teleport back to his house each night from the dungeon just so that his butler could make him a home cooked meal in the morning. We had 6 players in our group, so he regretted that he couldn't bring us all back. But he assured us that he'd bring us some scones.


Yeah, the reason they stop at that level is because the system doesn't handle high levels well. Mainly because of spellcasters and their ability to ruin any adventure you come up with.

By choosing to take the long way around the pit they are avoiding dealing with your NPC so what is the difference between that and using magic to avoid it? What is the difference between the fighter killing the troll or the wizard killing him with a fireball?

You are right about teleport at ninth level you can teleport a party of four. Though for larger parties it can be an issue our groups usually have five to six players in it. We play a different version that is house ruled where the levels start at ninth. It was a spell that we nerfed a long time ago so I sometimes forget what is raw and what is house ruled. Especially late at night when I am dying to go to bed but I can't because I am feeding a baby bird every two hours.

The wizard that was teleporting home every night which spell was he using? If he was using teleport did he always make the roll to arrive exactly where he wanted to? There have been times where we have used teleport and ended way off target.

You have every eight to say you don't want something in your game but just because you don't want that level in magic doesn't mean that others agree. Look I agree that running a low magic gritty game in 3E takes a lot of tweaking I know because I have tried to do it. It is a lot of work.

One of the things I really hope for 5E is that it will give us the ability to use the rules easily to play a low magic gritty campaign and then turn around and use them for a high magic campaign.


And Pathfinder ending at 15 is not just because of magic it is also because other classes also get high powered.

 

[hanez]

If these people don't care about mechanical balance, then why are they so opposed to the people who do want balanced classes? That's what puzzles me.

I can't speak for everyone. But I was all for balance until about a year AFTER 4e came out. It then became clear, after a lot of playing, that the deisngers threw A LOT out of the window in exchange for balance. They seem to have come to the same conclusion too.

I am STILL for balance, but not at any cost. And I use this thread to discuss the degrees and variables of balance we want, and the cost of balance.

 

[Mallus]

How did Paizo fix the fighter / wizard balance issue where it was so terribly broken in 3.5?

The simple answer: they didn't.

 

[Elf Witch]

I'm out of this discussion, btw. I don't think anybody is going to convince anybody else here, everything we say seems to be a repetition of the same steps over and over.

I do want to leave one final thought though:

There are people who don't see a balance problem. They've never come across it. Ok, that's fair enough. But why should the game cater only to them? If there's also a bunch of people who claim they do have problems, why shouldn't the game address this? Why is, "I have never had problems with this", considered a retort against the people who did have problems with this? People, your own experiences are not the only yardstick against which to measure out there. If a lot of people make complaints, something ain't right. Even if you don't see it.

I don't think the game should just cater to us who don't have an issue but the same thing goes the other way why should they cater to the people who do have an issue.

I think it should be addressed but in a way that allows both sides to have the ability to use the system. But even if they can't there are other editions and systems that can be used to get what you want.

Just because people complain about something does not mean they are right. And the people who don't agree are wrong. Are you claiming that you are not basing your opinions on your experiences?

In my gaming history I have seen every class played one time or another in a way that totally stepped all over the rest of the players.

Powergamers and role players often have major issues playing at the same table. And there are people who believe that powergamers are playing wrong and have horrible experiences with it so they want rules that prevent it from happening. Other people feel it is a valid fun way to play and want rules that allow it.