Hardest things to balance in game

[Lord Zardoz]

Disclaimer: This is NOT meant to be a thread about feats / spells / abilities / monsters that you have deemed, in your infinite wisdom, broken.

I am wondering what elements in D&D you personally have the hardest time striking a reasonable balance for in game. From my own experience, I find the following difficult to balance when running a game.

1) Half Orc Barbarian 1 with 20 Str
This is difficult to balance because of the staggering bonuses to hit and damage such a character gains at first level. When Raging, the player has +8 to hit and +10 to damage at a time when a more typical character would get maybe +3 to hit and damage. This makes combats very hard to predict. Many creatures with 2 or 3 HD become one shot targets. But the Barbarian is not exactly that sturdy. If you ignore this offensive power, combats are staggeringly easy. But if you run Combats balanced with his presence in mind, you run the risk of a TPK. It is exceedingly difficult to make a fight that is not either a cakewalk or a TPK risk at low levels with such a character present.

2) All or nothing Save or Screwed Spells
To narrow it down, I am talking about Hold Person/ Hideous Laughter, but I am sure other spells also fit this description. If your planning on running a fight that consists of a handful of cannon fodder led by one stronger than average leader, or a BBEG, these spells can really throw off the difficulty of an encounter. If your BBEG fails his save the fodder is going to be very easy to mop up. If your BBEG makes his saves, the fight may be much, much harder to win. Most of my difficulty is due to me not being used to having many spell casters in my games, so I am sure this will pass. But the possibility of having a fight end before it ever really begins does complicate things.

That about covers it for me. It should be interesting to see what other people have problems handling.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Kristian Serrano]

For me it's general practices that seem to be more art rather than science.

Magic Items: This includes wondrous items, rings, item abilities, etc. I've often tried to create legacy abilities a la Weapons of Legacy, but I gave up on that. I instead use the enhancement bonus ability options and choose from the lists in Magic Item Compendium.

Feats: I have a problem with feats in general in that there are so many great options that allow one to really design a unique character concept, but the number of slots available to characters is too limiting (I don't see why d20 didn't allow for 1 feat/HD for all creatures). Aside from that, I also have a hard time balancing feats with one another given the wide range of value feats tend to have.

Classes/Prestige Classes: identical to the feats issue in that they can be difficult to balance, especially with variable numbers of levels for different PrCs. Classes are generally easier since one can easily compare against any of the 11 classes in the core rules. However, I often come across situations where a player has a concept, but none of the classes help to achieve that concept feasibly without imposing other abilities in which they aren't interested. For example, I have a player who wants to play a holy combatant character with domain powers and a high BAB, but doesn't necessarily care for spells. Paladin has the BAB, but no domains. Would trading off a mount and lay on hands for domains be sufficient. It's debatable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Large groups. I had 11 players in my campaign at one point, in a single party. You're stuck with throwing large groups at them, because anything fewer in number is going to be able to kill a player with one blow, or near enough.

Wildly unbalanced groups. Now the campaign is in two separate parties. One has a bard, a ranger, a rogue, a fighter and two wizards. No one knows how to heal. The other party has a cleric/rogue, a cleric/paladin, a barbarian/druid, a ranger and a fighter. So that party has the opposite problem, although I know I can err on the side of too deadly for them and they'll likely have a healer standing at the end.

Neither of these are game-wreckers, but they've given me some headaches.

 

[SiderisAnon]

My bane is the uber-tweaked character in a party of less optimally designed PCs.

One of the hardest things I ever had to balance was a particular PC monk. The player was strong on the rules, has an analytical mind, and tweaked the heck out of the character to make him as optimal as possible. The party had little magic (it was a low magic world), but the player always seemed to be able to convince other party members to give him the items he most wanted/needed. Since they were generally fighting people and not monsters, I didn't have a lot of special abilities to use against him. Over the course of the game, the monk evolved from annoying to pretty much untouchable. (About the only thing that ever managed to cause damage to him were some psionic foes and the time they plane-hopped and fought some powerful demons.)

It's one of those things - with the right class and a very optimal build, you can create a character that outshines the rest of the party in their tiny niche. His niche was not getting hit.

(The above is not meant to start a discussion/argument on the merits of the Monk class. I'm not bashing the whole class, just citing a specific example.)

 

[Kestrel]

I've had the same problem. A tweaked damage dealer with a group that was less optimized for combat. In trying to balance combat for that particular character, the rest of the party could have easily been slaughtered. If that character dropped, they were pretty much screwed.

 

[TheCrazyMuffinMan]

Friends in High Places (ex: the Clr15 in another thread where the party are all L5)

 

[der_kluge]

I think in general many DMs fail in the balance category because they try to pit 1 BBEG against a group of 4-6 PCs.

Unfortunately, the game does not work like the movies. In anything but a huge CR gap, a single BBEG is going to get creamed by a group of individuals. Even if they miss half the time, they're still getting at least twice as many actions as the BBEG does.

This becomes more pronounced the higher the level becomes.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Half Orc Barbarian 1 with 20 Str

This is one reason to use point buy (a reasonable amount), and enforce an 8 (before racial mods) as minimal stats. Said barbarian won't last long if they have a Wisdom and Dex of 8.

 

[avr]

Warforged. I think they're a balanced if tough LA 0, but all their immunities are a pain to design challenges around (especially the odd situation where you thought they'd be immune and they turn out not to be!) and giving them motivations is a pain also.

 

[Gez]

If you ignore this offensive power, combats are staggeringly easy. But if you run Combats balanced with his presence in mind, you run the risk of a TPK. It is exceedingly difficult to make a fight that is not either a cakewalk or a TPK risk at low levels with such a character present.

Make several easy combats happen on the same day. The barbarian can only rage once at this level. Still get a big bonus from his natural ability score, though. But if you manage the timing right, the barbarian may be fatigued at the time, and the penalties incurred then will compensate for this.