D&D General Do you care how about "PC balance"?

[Doug McCrae]

no by definition special is better than usual.

If usual means the typical inhabitant of the game world - 0th-level humans in AD&D, 1st level commoners in 3e - then PCs are always special in the sense of being better. Due to the class system, they are also special relative to one another in the sense of having different abilities.

However the class system, particularly as it was interpreted in AD&D 1e, makes PCs less special (in the sense of distinctive) relative to the game world. There are many other clerics, fighters, etc. I dislike classes as applied to the game world for that reason.

 

[Deset Gled]

no by definition special is better than usual. If everyone is special then it becomes the new usual and it's by definition not special any more.

special

spe·cial | \ ˈspe-shəl \
Definition of special
(Entry 1 of 2)
1: distinguished by some unusual quality
especially : being in some way superior
"our special blend"
2: held in particular esteem
"a special friend"
3a: readily distinguishable from others of the same category : UNIQUE
"they set it apart as a special day of Thanksgiving"
b: of, relating to, or constituting a species : SPECIFIC
4: being other than the usual : ADDITIONAL, EXTRA
5: designed for a particular purpose or occasion

 

[Neonchameleon]

no by definition special is better than usual. If everyone is special then it becomes the new usual and it's by definition not special any more.

But the PCs aren't usual. Where the problem arises is when the PCs are not special in their roles. If the rogue is the best sneak and assassin and the wizard can rain down fire over a wide area both are special. But if the wizard can out-sneak, out-explore, and out-assassinate the rogue (thank you invisibility, knock, and various scrying spells) then the rogue isn't special but the wizard is. And if the self-buffed cleric can outfight the fighter as well as heal and provide skills and utility the fighter really isn#'t special.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Oh, and I should mention to anyone that thinks that "When everyone is special then no one is" please don't take your moral lessons from supervillains like Syndrome (or for that matter Thanos who doesn't understand demographic transitions, exponential growth, or human psychology).

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Baby, we don’t discuss what we are taking! We play! 4 clerics? Sold. 4 wizards? Hope you live!

take what you want play what you want. What? Are we 10?

the question is “am I having fun?” Period.

we played a ton of 1e. Was that balanced? Were thieves powerful. Nope. But sometimes we had a hankering to play a thief. The role was fun, the challenges were there.

same as now. Can we do interesting stuff and travel together? Balance is a secondary thought. The first thought is FUN.

 

[EscherEnigma]

As noted early in this thread, balance only matters in-so-far as it effects niche and spotlight and things like that.

That said? It's much easier to not step on each other's toes if someone isn't shooting themselves in the foot and splattering their toe all over the place.

And that said, I've found that this is much less of a problem in 5e then it was in 3.x. The gap just isn't as big.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

So, do you, as a player, actually worry about how your character stacks up to other players' characters? If so, in what ways? What about it is important to you? By what metric do you judge? What do you do if you feel your choices aren't as good or your character isn't as competent?

As a DM? No.
As a Player? No...'ish.

The only time I get annoyed as a Player is when the game lets one PC Fighter completely overshadow another PC Fighter simply due to 'ability/skill choices'. That's annoying. I don't like systems that reward "min/maxing hyper-builds". Probably why we don't use any optional books (except for specific things on a case by case basis), and why we don't use Feats or Multiclassing. It's core PHB, DMG and MM with a smattering of house rules.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Hussar]

Well, I did have a personal experience with it playing in a 5e campaign a couple of years ago. The DM's home-brew Knight class, which I took, wound up being massively underperforming. Funny thing is, when I complained about it, no one believed me. It was all in my head. It wasn't really happening.

So, I tracked damage output for the group, per PC, for a couple of sessions. Wound up that out of 5 PC's, the only one who did less damage than me was the enchanter wizard who had almost no direct damage spells. And, it wasn't even close. The paladin, with the same sword and board fighting style as my fighter, was doubling my damage. Everyone else was triple or higher.

Now, at that point, yeah, I managed to convince my DM that some changes were needed to be made.

OTOH, when my Forge Priest was way under damaging, I didn't care. That's not what the character was for. He was all about healing and making stuff. No problems. So, it obviously depends on the expectations of the player for the character.

Heh, we had a player who massively min-maxed, didn't care about anything else, completely lose his naughty word when the big bad fight turned into a ranged, running combat and his great axe wielding maniac was pretty much riding the pines. Explaining that it was his own fault for creating a one trick pony character did not help the conversation. He actually left the group over it.

So yeah, it can matter a lot and players can react in very different ways.

 

[Northern Phoenix]

I think niche protection and varied roles are important between players, but i mostly care that the PCs are balanced vs the Monsters, which i think is 5Es worst balance point "by the book". Yes, they're easy to change but i still think it's a little poor that i have to do so so often.

 

[Tonguez]

Really Balance is about competence and spotlight ie do players feel their characters get to shine in play and do GMs have tools to create fun challenges in the pursuit of the game.

if some characters don’t stack up against others or if the challenge of the world is too easy or too difficult then the game suffers.

beyond that Balance shouldn’t be a limiting factor