Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="sheadunne" data-source="post: 6147027" data-attributes="member: 27570">I believe he was talking about two different events.Giving up class levels in a full caster class is usually a negative. Gaining fire resistance at low levels is no match for gaining miracle at higher levels, which is ultimately what the character is giving up. I would have said Hussar was nerfing his character in favor of flavor. A straight cleric out of the PHB is a pretty potent character. When they added additional abilities to the class (such as the divine metamagic feat or the channeling feats) the class just got even better. A druid isn't as great if she doesn't take natural spell, but still above most other classes. I think the important part to remember is that it's really not combat potency or skills that need balance, those are indeed a matter of character and campaign choices, but rather the narrative control elements that are primarily limited to casters. It's the utility of these classes that make balance an issue. Take for instance one of the most power narrative spells out there, teleport. This simple spell (or that variations that clerics and druids get), allows the character to bypass the narrative the DM has laid out in the game. You must travel the misty road to the tower of blah blah and do this important thing. The fighter shrugs and heads toward the road, it's his only option. The Wizard smirks and says haha to your narrative, I'm going to bypass all that and appear at the tower instead. Even spells like Speak with Dead, Rope Trick, Fly, Scrying, etc have profound effects on the narrative of the game. Now a practiced DM will have taken into account these elements, having played with them for possibly decades, but a inexperienced DM will be a bit flummoxed by them, as we all probably were the first time a group of players said, nah, we're going to bypass everything you created for tonight's game and jump right to the city across the sea.How do you balance those elements with the other classes that don't get them? In earlier editions they were balanced with negatives. You might teleport into a wall or age 5 years if you cast a spell. However, those penalties often never came up in my experience. In 3x they attempted to give some spells an XP cost, but then created an XP system that rewarded being lower in XP, as it allowed the player to gain even more experience and potentially pass other characters. In 4e they removed the narrative elements into rituals (and gave everyone some in powers). This appealed to many players who were looking for a narrative balance between classes. I'm not sure damage differences and other effects were nearly as important to balance, but they did that as well (to some extent). It worked for some people and not for others. It didn't work for me because that's not what I expect or want from my D&D experience. D&D has always had narrative control issues and without them, it just feels different. Now when I look at games outside of D&D, I usually look for ones that provide that narrative balance. If they don't have it, I might as well play D&D. When I consider the Jim/DM issue, I wonder if another game that gives Jim the narrative control while balancing the mechanical elements, wouldn't keep his "mess with" instincts in check. I don't know. I haven't looked over 5e in a while, have they added narrative balance?</blockquote>

Verification