Class Balance - why?

[Elf Witch]

There is a big difference between the following two scenarios:

(1) The PCs, cresting a hill, see a river 150' wide, spanned by a single bridge, with a giant snoozing at the foot of the bridge on their side of the river. Before they get close enough to stir the giant, they retreat back to the other side of the hill to discuss their options. They decide to have the wizard cast a teleport to get all the party over the river and too their intended destination.

(2) The PCs, cresting a hill, see a wide river, with a single bridge, with a giant snoozing at the foot of the bridge on their side of the river. Before they get close enough to stir the giant, they retreat backt to the other side of the hill. They decide that the wizard will cast teleport to get them across the river, so they do not have to either pay off the giant, or fight it while crossing. But to do this requires giving the wizard a round to get into the middle of the bridge! [In 4e, the 10th level spell Arcane Gate can connect to points, each no more than 100' from the caster. A double run let's the wizard move 80' and still have a minor action left to cast the spell.] So the plan they come up with is . . . . [fill in the details yourself].
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4e, by removing, watering down or raising the cost of various "encounter bypassing" effects, increases the GM's situational authority. This is one aspect of the game's well-known focus on "the encounter". It is why the DMG has the notorious "guards at the gate" quote - the idea, as I see it, is not that the gameworld will contain no fantasy colour, but rather there is no need for "mere colour" encounters because the meaty encounters will provide that colour. And part of the way they will do that is because the system requires the players to engage with them - even when, as in scenario (2) above, the relevant mode of engagement is to try to avoid a conflict.

I don't see the difference both are methods to handle the encounter. As a DM I know my players abilities so I am aware that they may use teleport if they choose to teleport then they have just used a fifth level spell. Go me, that is a spell they won't have later. I enjoy making magic users use up their spells before they get to the big encounter.

I use little flow charts like what happens if they teleport and miss. I over plan encounters so that if they find away around ones that I expected to take awhile I have more.

If the bridge keeper was going to give them clues about what they were facing then they now are facing that blind.

I have said this before if you don't want your players having the ability to teleport then take it out of the game or add in game reasons that makes it more dangerous. But don't complain about it if it is available in your game and the players choose to use it get around an encounter they don't feel is important. If you really want them to face the encounter give them a reason why. Is the troll killing innocents is the bridge keeper a race of hated foes. It is up to the DM to make players want to engage with the encounters.

In our first 3.0 game we were captured stripped of all our stuff and told we would have to fight in the arena if we lived we would be given our stuff back and escorted to the boundaries of the land that were in.

We shocked the DM who really believed we would never willing leave all our items behind and try to cross a dangerous wilderness without any weapons or items. We choose to run and not fight in the arena. The DM had spent a week working on the arena encounters jokingly woth a hint of frustrations he waved those papers at us and said "this is why some DMs railroad."

 

[billd91]

This is a fairly common view point, but it still surprises me.

I haven't got my Moldvay Basic book ready-to-hand, but it's description of fireball is along the following lines: a 20'R ball of fire explodes, doing 1d6 per level damage to creatures in the radius.

That is almost identical to the 4e spell description - yet people talk as if Basic D&D, and other forms of classic D&D, were these fonts of creativity, and 4e the greatest anchor on creativity yet devised! And this despite page 42, and the discussion of the use of powers in skill challenges in DMG2, and the discussion of damaging objects in the DMG, all of which not only take for granted, but offer guidelines for the GM to adjudicate, creative and open-ended uses of magic (and other abilities) by a PC.

Why on earth would I limit my concerns on the scope of magic to something as narrow as a fireball? Magic does so much more. It stops time, it warps the fabric of reality, it bends the will, it clouds the senses, and it makes a damn fine cup of coffee.

For that matter, why would I limit my comparison to 4e and very early D&D to just one spell that happens to be very similar in those two editions?

An important point in all of this, even with 4e, is that magic is magic and gives magic using characters options non-magic using characters don't have. That will cause a form of imbalance. Sweating over that because it doesn't fit some gamist notion of balance is probably a waste of time and trying to force it into some kind of mechanical balance is going to cost you something, particularly in the eyes of the RPG simulationist.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see the difference both are methods to handle the encounter.

Fair enough.

For me, the difference is that one will create a story about a wizard casting a teleport to avoid the inconvenience of dealing with a giant-guarded bridge over a river, while the other will create a story about a group of wily rogues who outwitted a giant and managed to teleport across the river without having either to pay it or to fight it.

I've GMed systems that push in the direction of both sorts of story, but over time my preference has shifted in favour of systems that reliably encourage (2) rather than (1). Hence my preference for 4e over Rolemaster, 3E, AD&D etc.

If you really want them to face the encounter give them a reason why. Is the troll killing innocents is the bridge keeper a race of hated foes. It is up to the DM to make players want to engage with the encounters.

That's one approach to the game. It's not my preferred approach. I don't like to treat the identification and framing of situations as something to itself to be handled as part of the play. I prefer to handle the issue at the metagame level - ie to frame situations relying upon my players to be confident that I will present stuff of interest to them, so we can all cut to the chase of engaging with those situations.

As a DM I know my players abilities so I am aware that they may use teleport if they choose to teleport then they have just used a fifth level spell. Go me, that is a spell they won't have later.

<snip>

If the bridge keeper was going to give them clues about what they were facing then they now are facing that blind.

I don't really enjoy that style of play - certainly not as a GM, and only in very limited doses as a player. But if I did want to run such a game, I probably wouldn't use 4e.

 

[pemerton]

Why on earth would I limit my concerns on the scope of magic to something as narrow as a fireball? Magic does so much more. It stops time, it warps the fabric of reality, it bends the will, it clouds the senses, and it makes a damn fine cup of coffee.

But magic does these things in 4e too. I started with fireball because it's an easy case, and often discussed ("4e fireballs can't be used to set objects alight!" is a frequent refrain). But I intended the point to generalise.

 

[SlyDoubt]

Yes so when you design for one system it doesn't necessarily work as well in the other.

Things that work in 4E don't work in 3.X. Things that work in 3.X don't work in 4E. That's how it is. But 5E is a new edition and is specifically about distilling things down and allowing for flexibility.

How will the important ideas learned across so many years be integrated? I have a hard time believing everything will be modular. They need some kind of baseline for organized play and without a baseline it would be difficult to introduce new players to the game.

I imagine a number of specifics will be 'core'. How magic functions will be one of them I believe. Also how classes function. So how can this be avoided while still satisfying both camps? How can magic be kept nearly limitless and yet not make the fighter annoyed?

My guess is some kind of package system that allows for customizing to the extreme but you can still choose from a number of pre-builts instead. The pre-builts being designed around each other to be very balanced as far as damage and utility, skills, etc. While the larger system which the pre-builts fit into is very open as far as potential power level and spell usage.

 

[Bobbum Man]

Beeee-cause D&D is a class-based game. The purpose of a class-based game is to provide classes that can contribute equally to the adventure.

If one class can perform another classes function even better than the intended class can, it undermines the very nature of the game.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

"Not enough people" being in the same boat as me to sustain WotC's corporate bottom line is a LOT different than "not a substantial or important part of the audience." Keep in mind 4e still sold more than Pathfinder over most of the past few years and Pathfinder only pulled ahead when WotC slowed its release schedule. Ryan Dancey has a very informative post about why this is happening somewhere around EnWorld - it basically comes down to the fact that D&D needs to be a $50 million business to survive and D&D NEVER really has been, even during 3.5. In all likelihood, if WotC released Pathfinder and sold exactly the same amount of books as Paizo has, WotC would consider that a failure even though a small company like Paizo considers that level of sales to be wildly successful.

Please don't try to diminish the position of 4e fans just because WotC decided that half a divided audience isn't as good as the whole audience.

But Ryan Dancey doesn't know everything. Please don't use the "4th edition was fine, it was Hasbro that set the dollar bar to high" excuse. Hasbro has been around for a long time and they are involved in a lot of things. I'm sure they didn't roll to d10's and decided to add "million" to whatever came up and said that's what needs to be made.

Wizards will most likely be listening to people who either didn't like 4th edition and/or the people who thought 4th was okay but would rather have something else. Actually listening to die hard 4th edition fans is rather pointless because they want 4th edition or another edition that will mirror it. You don't want to mirror something that was essentially a failure.

 

[Hassassin]

4e, by removing, watering down or raising the cost of various "encounter bypassing" effects, increases the GM's situational authority.

I wouldn't use the word "authority", but the DM's job is definitely made more difficult by many 3e spells that need some tweaking. I'd rather see them balanced using drawbacks (system shock, teleport mishap), though. Teleport mishaps have been useful as plot hooks. Alternatively, just move them up some levels.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

...

I'm generally sympathetic to your posts in this (and other) threads, but I don't agree with your equation, here, of "mechanically governed resolution" with "combat".

I mean, 4e has a mechanical system for resolving out-of-combat encounters - namely, skill challenges - and some of the major changes between 3E and 4e (like the skill training and progression rules, the DC by level chart, etc) are all about making those non-combat encounters mechancially balanced, so a GM doesn't need to regulate the roleplaying and its outcomes in the sort of way the OP is advocating.

....

Fair enough man, I have read enough of your posts to reckon I would have fun in your game, however, I like the skill challange idea but not found it satisfing as implemented. I also find imbanlance much less of a problem to the GM in non combat encounters.
I also find that while all players will engage equally in combat not all players will engage equally in the non combat encounters. Some will lean more on their mechanics than others. However, l think imbalance is less problematic than in combat.
Mid to high level 3x is very problematic because CR is, as far as I am concerned not a relaible guide to difficulty to a given party in the way that monster xp is in 4e.

 

[FireLance]

You don't want to mirror something that was essentially a failure.

Such as making statements that could be construed as being disparaging of a previous edition? Oh yes, we certainly wouldn't want to see a repeat of that.