Game Balance - A Study in Imperfection (forked)

[Doug McCrae]

Reading some of Old Geezer's stories

Have they been collected anywhere or is it just a bunch of separate posts on rpg.net?

 

[Crothian]

My biggest issue with balance was that it is always just an illusion on a piece of paper. Once we allow players to control the perfectly balanced character the balance is messed up as all players are not equal. For years when I ran D&d games at cons I would give some people the same character sheets (becasue I was lazy) but not tell them. At the end of there session they would be convinved that one person was a few levels higher then the other person just because one players was better or luckier then the other.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This topic fascinates me, especially as it relates to character creation and advancement.

First Edition:
Edit: Take the 1E section with a grain of salt as I did not do my research I do know there was a first edition of DnD (I think )

• Stats 3d6 in line
• Random HP
• Death at 0
• XP through wealth acquired
• Different XP tables
• Multi-Classing (don't know)
• Base classes were it

Second Edition

• Stats 3d6 in line
• Random HP
• Death at 0
• XP through overcoming monsters and bonus XP based on class type (fighters per HD defeated, thieves per gold gained, Wizards for overcoming challenges with their magic, Clerics for furthering their faith)
• Different XP tables
• Demi-human multiclassing, human dual-class
• Base Classes and character kits

<snip>

1Ed also had multiclassing and dual-classing.

In addition, for both 1Ed and 2Ed, 3d6 was so commonly supplanted by 4d6 drop lowest that it might as well have been official. On top of that, the original Unearthed Arcana introduced a plethora of alternative stat generation methods, including one that was designed so that you picked your PC's class first, THEN generated stats via a method loaded to produce viable stats that matched character prereqs...such as Barbarians rolling 9d6 drop lowest 6 for Str.

 

[Nifft]

On top of that, the original Unearthed Arcana introduced a plethora of alternative stat generation methods, including one that was designed so that you picked your PC's class first, THEN generated stats via a method loaded to produce viable stats that matched character prereqs...such as Barbarians rolling 9d6 drop lowest 6 for Str.

Nice, I'd forgotten about that.

Just goes to show: the desire to play cool concepts (including "rare" classes like Paladin) will tend to corrode Balance by Rarity.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A hybrid form of balance that combines Rarity & Fiat- lets call it Balance by Excision- is a common feature of homebrews.

By that, I'm referring to DM's who simply excise elements of the game that they don't like or don't fit into their campaign world. Paladins and Monks are quite often a target for this kind of balance, IME, even though the downsides to playing the class are often enough to keep them rare. Certain spells also get this treatment.

Just goes to show: the desire to play cool concepts (including "rare" classes like Paladin) will tend to corrode Balance by Rarity.

Depending upon system.

I haven't looked at it recently, but the first version of Stormbringer- a Chaosium game that modeled the world of Michael Moorcock's Elric stories- had races/nationalities that varied wildly in power. This was done in an effort to preserve the flavor of the setting.

Your PC's race was randomly determined.

Melniboneans were the most powerful race in the game, so there was only a 2% chance of being one. Pan Tangians were next in power, and there was a 4% chance of being one of those. Similarly, the less evolved races were just as rare. The middle 70% of the race chart were varied in capabilities, but roughly equal.

That power, though, was tempered. Magic in the game was basically limited to summonings and bindings. You could summon supernatural creatures to aid you, just like in D&D, but you could also make magic items by summoning those creatures and binding them into particular items. (Which, BTW, was pretty much the only way to make magic items in the game.) This meant there wasn't the same kind of overwhelming battlefield control or mass "I WIN" magic in the game. The closest you could get to a Fireball, for instance, was by summoning a large Fire Elemental...and if you were powerful enough, you could bind it into some kind of grenade like item. (Think of a really nasty vial of Alchemist's Fire...or Wormy's demons bound into spheres that he used for billiard balls...)

I've been in games in which the die rolls favored rarity- 2 Melniboneans and a Pan Tangian out of 6 PCs made for a party that was running roughshod over the world. But it wasn't because the 3 rare PCs were winning every encounter on their own, it was because they equipped themselves and their partymates with the best equipment possible. In a sense, they were like a tank battalion fighting harbor seal pups.

OTOH, a party which had NONE of the rare races faced a different challenge. For them, the world was grim & gritty, and magic was something OTHER people had...until they took it.

 

[Nifft]

A hybrid form of balance that combines Rarity & Fiat- lets call it Balance by Excision- is a common feature of homebrews.

By that, I'm referring to DM's who simply excise elements of the game that they don't like or don't fit into their campaign world. Paladins and Monks are quite often a target for this kind of balance, IME, even though the downsides to playing the class are often enough to keep them rare. Certain spells also get this treatment.

Interesting that those are the classes most often "balanced" by alignment and/or code of conduct, which to me says they are often imbalanced via social pressure.

I wonder if the DMs who ban those classes are specifically trying to remove a source of player-vs-DM conflict, rather than having an objection to the class itself.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Interesting that those are the classes most often "balanced" by alignment and/or code of conduct, which to me says they are often imbalanced via social pressure.

I wonder if the DMs who ban those classes are specifically trying to remove a source of player-vs-DM conflict, rather than having an objection to the class itself.

Cheers, -- N

IME...

Paladins get excluded because:

1. DM's don't want to deal with the ethical questions they raise
2. DM's don't want to deal with the party conflicts that can arise

Monks get excluded because

1. DMs don't want to include an "Eastern" themed class into their "Western" themed campaigns.
2. DMs don't know how to challenge them
3. DMs don't know how to reward them

 

[Obryn]

Monks get excluded because

1. DMs don't want to include an "Eastern" themed class into their "Western" themed campaigns.
2. DMs don't know how to challenge them
3. DMs don't know how to reward them

Having had a low-level monk in a 1e game I ran recently, I can tell you that the best way to challenge them is to attack them or hit them with anything whatsoever. They are seriously, seriously weak at low levels.

-O

 

[Kraydak]

It is worth noting that 1st/2nd editions are not nearly as wizard centric as people tend to claim. No bonus spells and the opposition having good saves crimps a wizard's style somewhat fierce. While they blew pre-UA, fighters became death machines with the introduction of weapon specialization. Barbarians, peoples protestations to the contrary, were actually a very, very weak class: no specialization crippled them. They were unplayable at low levels due to the class association/magic item restrictions, and at high level (in a party with roughly uniform xp) due to their catastrophic xp table.

 

[Votan]

Teleport and Polymorph Other are the poster-child spells here.

I suspect you could balance teleports with the addition of (easy to use) traces and blocks. But I agree that, out of the box, teleport is too strong to be risk free!