D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?

[Neonchameleon]

If you make character optimization not pay off, however, then you have an impossibly generic system, because your choices don't matter at all. The system would have to be "perfectly balanced."

This isn't actually true. You just need a narrativist system (3:16 will do).

But even where this is true it is deceptive. Talking about perfect balance is like talking about a frictionless environment. You may never reach it. But this doesn't mean that lowering friction doesn't improve the running of the engine - or the play of the game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

OK, you link right to it but you're also saying, pretty much directly, that you're missing his point. He says there are superior options, sure, but the so called "trap" options are not described as such. They're not traps and they're not actually "Timmy" cards. They're weaker options that have their uses, most of which won't apply to PCs in most circumstances, and that would have been better served with more explanation in that regard.

No. I'm linking to him because I understand what's going on. You, I think, have been reading The Alexandrian on the subject. And that is Monte Cook's own best gloss on what happened.

Toughness is, in 3.X, a generically recommended feat within the 3.0 PHB for certain classes. As a recommendation it is a trap. Even for a first level elf wizard it is a bad choice except in a one shot game because you can never retrain it out.

System options that you wouldn't think of taking except in rare cases because their use is not immediately obvious are one thing. System options that are highly substandard except in rare cases and then are recommended for generic builds are another.

 

[Yora]

The only way you are going to get that is by having a game where if something isn't listed on your character sheet you can not do it. And that might work in a boardgame or tabletop wargame but is utterly unacceptable in an RPG.

No. A great deal would be accomplished in which a class that is supposed to be a specalist in something is actually the best class in doing it.

Do not make the druid better in fighting than a figher.
Do not make the wizard better at making trapped corridors save for passing than a rogue.
Do not make a cleric better at tracking than a ranger.

 

[Steely_Dan]

No. A great deal would be accomplished in which a class that is supposed to be a specalist in something is actually the best class in doing it.

Do not make the druid better in fighting than a figher.
Do not make the wizard better at making trapped corridors save for passing than a rogue.
Do not make a cleric better at tracking than a ranger.

Total.

The Paladin should be the best out of beating the "living" crap out of demons.

I'm hoping for feind joy with the 5th Ed (sorry, cannot call it D&D Next, makes it sound like a brand of soda...) Paladin.

 

[Yora]

It is 5th Edition. We know it, they know it, they just have to admit it. ^^

 

[Ratskinner]

I'm not sure that it's so hard to make a system without significant imbalance and with player choice: HeroWars/Quest is an example. PCs are built out of freeform descriptors, with a certain number of good and middling bonuses to assign to them, and rules on the GM side to balance broad against narrow descriptors.

The scope for player choice isn't in relation to the dimension of mechanical effectiveness, but rather in relation to the fiction that a given PC generates and leverages (via the descriptors chosen).

Yup. I would add Capes to the list. Capes characters are precisely mechanically balanced and yet as different as can be. Of course, the mechanics side of the game is so abstract....dare I say "dissociated"...that I think it would drive most D&D to distraction. Still, as proof of concept, its perfect for this.

Admittedly this is quite different from D&D, and especially 3E and 4e D&D; and it requires dropping all pretence to simulationism in your PC build rules. <snippages>

No doubt. Its part of why I'm starting to lean toward Dungeon World over 5e (13th Age promises a lot, without revealing how it works its magic...makes me skeptical...prolly end up buying the stupid thing anyway.). Although I think it might be possible to create a more structurally D&Dish thing by mashing up concepts and structures from FATE and Capes, I don't know that I could sell that to anyone as D&D. Certainly the celebratory barbecue would be serving a lot of sacred hamburger.

 

[Lanefan]

If I understand correctly, you are saying that 3e rewarding system mastery is a problem.

When system mastery becomes the focus of the game, it's a problem.

In playing 3e I found myself spending far too much time trying to learn the system - and this is without intentionally trying to optimize - which just got in the way of playing the game at the table.

Lan-"rules are like referees - if you don't notice them, they've done their job"-efan

 

[Magil]

Because I'm not sure what kinds of games you want to play, it's hard for me to judge the truth of this! My point is more modest - that there can be RPGs with meaningful choice but no mechanical optimisation.

A clear example: if I buy my PC the power "Deal handily with undead" and you buy your PC the power "Deal handily with corrupt governmental officials", and if the encounter design rules tell the GM to build encounters that reflect the signals sent by the players in buidling their PCs, then neither of us is more optimal than the other - in play, for example, we can expect to have to deal with a city government corrupted by a death cult. But the choice to build the different PCs is still meaningful - my PC is going to live out the story of Van Helsing, yours the story of Antonio Di Pietro.

Well, to be honest, I don't want to play a system where I have to second-guess the GM to that degree Typically, I don't "buy" character options that only work in one particular situation, unless I can create the situation myself. And if the only choices (or even the majority of them) in a game were those kind of choices I probably wouldn't want to play! Just not my style. I should note that I'm not terribly familiar with those kinds of systems that, as you said earlier, were very different from DnD. I play DnD because that's the kind of style I like.

This isn't actually true. You just need a narrativist system (3:16 will do).

But even where this is true it is deceptive. Talking about perfect balance is like talking about a frictionless environment. You may never reach it. But this doesn't mean that lowering friction doesn't improve the running of the engine - or the play of the game.

I'm not against seeking balance--actually, I'm all for it. There can be a point where too much is sacrificed in the name of balance, but I don't think DnD will ever go down that road in my eyes. Though I'm willing to bet that 4th edition represented precisely that for some.

This is what I tried to highlight earlier when I said that Pun-Pun was okay, the Batman wizard is not okay. To me, Pun-Pun isn't enough to make me think less of a system, but the Batman wizard says to me that the system is broken (though perhaps I should rather use the druid or divine metamagic cleric as more direct examples).

 

[pemerton]

Well, to be honest, I don't want to play a system where I have to second-guess the GM to that degree

In the sort of system I'm talking about (and I'm assuming that [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION]'s Capes, and [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]'s 3:16 are similar), the GM is obliged to follow the leads of the players - so as to avoid the second-guessing you're properly worried about.

This is what I tried to highlight earlier when I said that Pun-Pun was okay, the Batman wizard is not okay. To me, Pun-Pun isn't enough to make me think less of a system, but the Batman wizard says to me that the system is broken (though perhaps I should rather use the druid or divine metamagic cleric as more direct examples).

Agreed. It's not corner cases or obscure combinations that are the problem; it's when core builds break the game even when everyone's just trying to have a good time playing their PCs!

 

[Tony Vargas]

If I understand correctly, you are saying that 3e rewarding system mastery is a problem.

I struggle to see where system mastery is not rewarded in any version of D&D, but more importantly, I struggle to see why you think it shouldn't be.

3e supposedly set out to build in rewards for system mastery, intentionally, and that turned out to be a gasoline-on-a-fire sort of problem.

4e, OTOH, set out to minimize that problem, to keep system-mastery down as much as ever it could, and was regularly 'updated' to that end. The CharOp forum never shut down. You can find no end of powerful/effective builds for 4e. They're not /as/ over-the-top as 3e, and they're not as crowded around broken spell-casting classes, but there's no shortage.

You can't eliminate the effect of system mastery in an RPG. RPGs are just too complex. Any complex system can be 'gamed.' There's no need to set out to reward it, trying to do so just results in a broken system.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think one necessary psychological addition to this is: Playing it like it's a game with rules to exploit for maximum advantage rather than playing it like you're developing a fantasy action story with a framework of rules to support that. I'll admit that there have always been people playing like the former, but it is the point where virtually all RPGs face challenges.

The question for me is - when are you min/maxing, and when are you just playing a reasonable fantasy character?

For example, if a Cleric character notices that his friends need a lot of healing, and he decides to acquire a magical item that grants healing, is that min/maxing? Does it become min/maxing if he starts expending some of his life energy (or whatever XP are) and costly material components to build a supply of such items?

I suppose it is min/maxing that it is always that one specific player character that does all this stuff, and no one else seems to use it. But - logically, if all these elements were in place already, at some point, different ideas would have developed by different people, and eventually we would get that "magic-aware" society that actually uses magic like technology. It may still be very expensive and not available to many in practice, but it would be available to some, and a few of these that can afford it really need a lot of it.

AD&D didn't enable this that easily - the rules didn't suggest the more or less free ability to buy or sell magical items in large settlements, it didn't give a reliable way to craft magical items. If no one really could know how to build a Wand of Cure Light Wound reliable, it can't become a common magic technology.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No. A great deal would be accomplished in which a class that is supposed to be a specalist in something is actually the best class in doing it.

Do not make the druid better in fighting than a figher.
Do not make the wizard better at making trapped corridors save for passing than a rogue.
Do not make a cleric better at tracking than a ranger.

OK.

The rogue needs to be able to hide better than the invisible wizard and better at picking locks than the wizard's knock spell. And better at climbing walls than the wizard's Spiderclimb or even Fly

The ranger needs to be better at tracking than the cleric's divinations.

And here is the problem. Making the rogue better at hiding than the invisible wizard. Even 4e didn't go quite that far (and then messed up the wizard at the end).

 

[Yora]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=6014639

According to the source, Mike Mearls mentioned this about balancing spellcasters in 5th Edition:

Q: In editions previous to 4th one of the often heard complaints was that the spellcasters, primarily the wizard was more powerful, useful, and fun to play than the other classes, especially at higher levels. Did you use the wizard as a sort of baseline for establishing what the other classes needed to equal up to, instead of reducing it to make the other classes feel more relevant?

A: It’s a little bit of a combination of the two. Some spells need to be reigned in, specifically utility spells that are too good for their level, spells that are really powerful when used in combination with other spells, and the ease of stocking up on magic items and spell slots to make those combinations possible.

If it works out or not remains to be seen, but it is something they are aware of. Which really solidifies my positive expectations for the game.

 

[slobo777]

OK.

The rogue needs to be able to hide better than the invisible wizard and better at picking locks than the wizard's knock spell. And better at climbing walls than the wizard's Spiderclimb or even Fly

The ranger needs to be better at tracking than the cleric's divinations.

And here is the problem. Making the rogue better at hiding than the invisible wizard. Even 4e didn't go quite that far (and then messed up the wizard at the end).

Put it the other way around:

Whatever the second-level spell the Wizard has that improves a non-Rogue's stealth, it shouldn't make that character better than a 3rd level Rogue stealth specialist. If you cannot conceive of or create an Invisibility power that doesn't meet that constraint, then adjust other things - increase the spell level, make it only work on Rogues (!!!) etc etc.

4E's (and D&D Next's) separation of Invisible versus Hidden goes a long way here. So does short or limited durations on Invisibility. It can also be better mechanically round-by-round, if there's a limitation that the Rogue doesn't abide by - provided the limitation actually turns up in play. The limitation of spell slots as a resource is often irrelevent, when a day's worth of events that a particular spell effect solves fit into one casting of a spell.

In this view of spell design, pure casters are there to provide flexibility, and for any special focus that is siloed into "magic only" (e.g. protection versus monsters' arcane attacks). You need the latter to prevent wizards being demoted from "best at everything" to "jack of all trades, master of none" in one giant pendulum-swung-too-far change. Wizards still need a schtick, and to be fun to play.

 

[billd91]

Put it the other way around:

Whatever the second-level spell the Wizard has that improves a non-Rogue's stealth, it shouldn't make that character better than a 3rd level Rogue stealth specialist. If you cannot conceive of or create an Invisibility power that doesn't meet that constraint, then adjust other things - increase the spell level, make it only work on Rogues (!!!) etc etc.

That's a poison pill. That would make invisibility (or any equivalently designed utility spell) degrade in relative performance very quickly as characters level.

A better solution is for the utility spell to not be an auto-success (like traditional knock) but allow the wizard to use his caster level as if he were a rogue skilled in the ability being mimicked by the utility spell. Then the utility spell allows the caster to double for the rogue on the rogue's terms - having to succeed or fail on a roughly equivalent check.

It would also fix the 3e's issue of cheap utility wands too - by incorporating caster level, they quickly increase in expense reducing their relative value.

 

[timASW]

No. I'm linking to him because I understand what's going on. You, I think, have been reading The Alexandrian on the subject. And that is Monte Cook's own best gloss on what happened.

Toughness is, in 3.X, a generically recommended feat within the 3.0 PHB for certain classes. As a recommendation it is a trap. Even for a first level elf wizard it is a bad choice except in a one shot game because you can never retrain it out.

System options that you wouldn't think of taking except in rare cases because their use is not immediately obvious are one thing. System options that are highly substandard except in rare cases and then are recommended for generic builds are another.

I use toughness for humanoid monsters all the time, most of them arent building towards a level 20 character afterall and come from cultures where toughness might be a required feat to even survive past 1st level.

Some feats and options werent meant for PC's neccesarily. And improved toughness wasnt bad for some classes.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Toughness is, in 3.X, a generically recommended feat within the 3.0 PHB for certain classes. As a recommendation it is a trap. Even for a first level elf wizard it is a bad choice except in a one shot game because you can never retrain it out.

If your point is that Toughness is a crappy feat and needs a revision, your point is well-taken. If your point is that Toughness was made specifically to fool novice players into taking a crappy feat, that isn't supported by anything you quote and frankly sounds rather conspiratorial. It isn't so much a trap choice as it is an invitation to houserule (which can be said of any bad rule, really). A lot of people do that. Even Nevewinter Nights changed Toughness, and WotC patched the issue with "Improved Toughness".

 

[B.T.]

Most of the in-game divination spells should get the axe, or, at the least, they should be heavily nerfed.

 

[GreyICE]

That's a poison pill. That would make invisibility (or any equivalently designed utility spell) degrade in relative performance very quickly as characters level.

A better solution is for the utility spell to not be an auto-success (like traditional knock) but allow the wizard to use his caster level as if he were a rogue skilled in the ability being mimicked by the utility spell. Then the utility spell allows the caster to double for the rogue on the rogue's terms - having to succeed or fail on a roughly equivalent check.

It would also fix the 3e's issue of cheap utility wands too - by incorporating caster level, they quickly increase in expense reducing their relative value.

That's not a great solution. A real solution would be to allow Invisibility to give you cover (so you can be hidden) wherever you are, and give you +5 bonus to stealth checks.

So basically, no matter where you are you are capable of becoming hidden, and Stealth is at a +5. A wizard who invests in Stealth and Dexterity with Invisibility will be sneakier than a rogue - but a Wizard who doesn't will still make a ton of noise (and people expect invisible people).

So most wizards will cast it on their rogue, and that's cool. Some may invest enoungh to become the party rogue, and that's cool too.

 

[billd91]

That's not a great solution. A real solution would be to allow Invisibility to give you cover (so you can be hidden) wherever you are, and give you +5 bonus to stealth checks.

So basically, no matter where you are you are capable of becoming hidden, and Stealth is at a +5. A wizard who invests in Stealth and Dexterity with Invisibility will be sneakier than a rogue - but a Wizard who doesn't will still make a ton of noise (and people expect invisible people).

So most wizards will cast it on their rogue, and that's cool. Some may invest enoungh to become the party rogue, and that's cool too.

I think it's a great solution for knock, finding traps, tracking, climbing, etc. But you're right that invisibility is a horse of a somewhat different color since it really doesn't do what a skill check would do. In a game in which hiding and moving silently (and spot and listen) are separate, it's a lot easier to adjudicate. Require a very high spot check, leave the listen check the same. But in a game with a more abstract stealth skill, a flat and not ridiculously high modifier for invisibility would be reasonably appropriate.