D&D 5E (2014) How much should 5e aim at balance?

[GreyICE]

Something like the Nentir Vale setting would be excellent. Good villain, followup hooks for further story, setting agnostic, and interesting encounters.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Freeform interactive storytelling isn't as easy as you think.

Have you ever watched a group of children tell stories? A group of scientists? A group of soldiers? Creating a compelling narrative is not inherently difficult at all. The interactive part is a little harder, but certainly not out of reach for most people.

If this was all I wanted from D&D I'd be playing Dread, 3:16, Wushu, or something else very rules light - or something like Dogs in the Vineyard, FATE, or something Cortex based (not Firefly) that adds to the narrative by tagging and aspecting.

I probably would be too, I just think it's important to remember that the character building and combat and advancement are addons, not the starting point.

I play D&D precisely because, to use Ron Edwards' terminology, it is incoherent. And therefore many people can get different things out of it at the same time (unlike Ron Edwards, I consider at least some level of incoherence actively helps campaign play).

You want incoherent and balanced?

If Core 4e is 0% of what you want and core 3e is 30% of what you want, I wonder just what you do want. The games are very alike in most ways.

That's not what WotC's marketing pitch for 4e would have us believe!

I tend to look at 4e as being largely composed of a small subset of the 3e rules, particularly those from late 3.5 supplements (marshals and warblades in the PHB under the names warlord and fighter, for example, or all spellcasters effectively having reserve feats, or monsters being examples rather than quasi-classes, complex skill checks being made into skill challenges, etc. etc.). It's just not the subset that I liked.

I think that the core problem is that 95% of house rules are simply bad

A strange perspective. I think houserules almost invariably make the game better by virtue of being created for a table rather than for a mass market. Your perspective would lead me to believe that either you think that at least 96% of published rules are bad (not impossible), or that you think that people who play rpgs are remarkably inept. I suspect you may not be defining houserules as broadly as I do; I say any time you go off the book it's a houserule.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And, I'm still baffled by the idea that 4e isn't easy to customize. How can it not be? The math is RIGHT THERE. You know exactly what's going to happen (or at the very least, you have some very good pointers) if you change something and, if you want to achieve a particular end, it's generally ludicrously simple. That's the beauty of a balanced, transparent system. It's very, very easy to customize.

Being easy to customize is encouraging, I'm sure. But, a balanced system doesn't /need/ to be customized to work. I think the kernel of the idea is that a broken system that needs to be fixed /forces/ you to do some customization work. Once you've done that work, you're more inclined to do it again. Conversely, if you have a system that works, and how it works is obvious, then how customization might break it is also obvious. While that means your hack is going to be easier and less likely to be broken, it could also be intimidating and discourage you from trying in the first place.

That's on the DM side. Once you've decided to heavily mod a game, you still need to get players...

If the game is notoriously broken, and every player knows DMs that are any good are going to mod it, getting players to play in your 'modified' version of the game is going to be easy: they can't say whether it'll be good or bad, but it might be good, which is more than they can expect from the unmodified version. OTOH, if you mod a game that players know to be good, they might be less enthused about it - they know that the unmodified version will give them a good play experience, while trying a mod might or might not.

 

[Victim]

Well, I do expect to take an active role in action resolution (through circumstance modifiers and other similar moment-to-moment rulings), but really, balance is created by the DM deciding what actions there are to be resolved (which is probably more about world-building and scene-framing). That's kind of hard to get around.

For example, if a DM designs a closed dungeon adventure with a lair guarded exclusively by golems, the casters are likely to be rather "unbalanced" due to lack of opportunity. If he designs a political adventure where combat is discouraged, the fighter is likely to feel rather "unbalanced", but the bard might suddenly feel overpowered. These kinds of things outweigh the basic action resolution mechanics.

Hey, that's a great example. Let's take a closer look.

Social situation where fighter feels weak: benefits provided by Fighter class: ????

Dungeon guarded by golems where wizard has "lack of opportunity:" Stuff wizard class provides:

Divinations like Clairvoyance and Prying Eyes to gather info about the dungeon from safety.

Party support like Haste, Enlarge Person, etc.

Battlefield control spells like Walls or Evard's.

Terrain alteration effects to alter the dungeon and sometimes help in combat (Disintegrate, Polymorph into Umber Hulk, Stoneshape, etc).

Use summoned monsters in combat, or to help detect traps.

Movement magic like Flight, Etherealness, D-Door to bypass tricky areas.

The wizard can also fight by Polymorphing into something with self buffs.

No SR spells like Orbs can also be used to attack Golems directly.

And probably some other stuff I missed.

------------------------------------------

See, that's what people talk about when they talk about imbalance. One class's "lack of opportunity" would be a surfeit of useful stuff to do for other characters.

And if it makes in world sense to worry about dealing with all the stuff a caster can do with magic immune monsters, dimensionally locked areas, permanent dispeling screens, walls that extend to the ethereal, etc without worrying that much about the other classes, that's more evidence that the game is unbalanced.

 

[Magil]

And, I'm still baffled by the idea that 4e isn't easy to customize. How can it not be? The math is RIGHT THERE. You know exactly what's going to happen (or at the very least, you have some very good pointers) if you change something and, if you want to achieve a particular end, it's generally ludicrously simple. That's the beauty of a balanced, transparent system. It's very, very easy to customize.

I mean, look at Essentials. They take the core 4e engine and strip off very, very large chunks, and you can still run it alongside core 4e. Imagine, for a second, trying to do that in 3e. We're going to strip out Vancian casting, entirely, and then try to run those characters alongside Vancian casters. Good luck.

How much customization do you want?

I'll just add in here that one of the things that I love about 4E are the online tools for it--the character builder makes character building a snap, and using adventure tools I have made countless custom monsters.

The custom monsters thing is a really big thing for me. I found the process used in 3rd edition to be quite stifling, and with Adventure Tools automating a good chunk of the math for me I find creating monsters to be quick and easy. Granted, the bad thing about Adventure Tools is that Wizards neglected to keep it up to date and provide better versions, so the math is stuck in pre-MM3 land. However, looking at later generation monsters I can infer the changes to math made and I autocorrect them by habit now. I think my customized monsters fare at least as well as the monsters I've used straight from the books, so much so that I would say that more than half of the monsters my players fight are customized in one way or another (some completely homemade, some reskinned from level/role with a few flavor changes).

I would find it more difficult to create monsters in a system more like 3rd edition, where I had to either equip monsters with equipment or figure out weird natural armor bonuses. 4th Edition is a snap, value + level, adjust to role, done. I hope at the very least that there are tools handy to aid the DM in this endeavor for those of us who are inclined to use computer programs to do it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For example, if a DM designs a closed dungeon adventure with a lair guarded exclusively by golems, the casters are likely to be rather "unbalanced" due to lack of opportunity.

Not. Even. Close. If a DM designs a dungeon with a lair guarded exclusively by golems and the wizards have any clue at all that this is going to be the case then only specialist evokers (already the weakest mages) are going to be slowed by the Spell Immunity.

Almost the entire Conjuration school ignores spell resistance and immunity. Which mean that four the unholy five combat conjurations (Grease, Web, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, and Evard's Black Tentacles) all work on golems with no questions asked. Stinking Cloud, of course fails because Golems are constructs. But also because Golems are constructs, they have terrible saving throws. Of the SRD listed ones, only the CR 16 42 Hit Dice giant stone golem has a save in excess of +6 - and for a CR 10 monster to have saves of +2 and +3 means they are going down like a chump to a low level spell like Glitterdust - even a humble Web will hold all except the big monster a few rounds.

The wizard is laughing at the golems, punking CR 10 monsters that were designed to be his bane with second level spells - and that without using all the versatility @Victim suggests (must spread XP around...) to simply avoid the golems above.

Meanwhile the fighter had better have an adamantine weapon. Preferably a bludgeoning one. Because otherwise the Golem's DR10/Adamantine (normally) is going to mean that he has problems.

So tell me, which way is this unbalanced? Because by my reading of the actual mechanics, golems are harder for a fighter to deal with than an even vaguely prepared wizard.

If he designs a political adventure where combat is discouraged, the fighter is likely to feel rather "unbalanced", but the bard might suddenly feel overpowered. These kinds of things outweigh the basic action resolution mechanics.

I hear what you say. But in that adventure, the wizard is still powerful. He just picks a partly different spell loadout. The fighter on the other hand sucks even harder than he did against the Golems.

Edit: The core problem with the 3.X fighter for balance purposes is twofold.
1: When things go outside his area of expertise (fighting) he has no abilities at all to bring to the party other than being a warm body. (Or the Leadership feat...). Literally every other class in the game including the Barbarian and Paladin has more non-combat abilities.
2: The fighter sucks at fighting. He's good enough when he manages to get into swords reach of the enemy. But has no special ability at all that helps him get there. He has no additional speed, defences (in fact he has one of the worst saves in the game), way to not be seen, or any other inherent way to bring axe to face.

 

[Lanefan]

... only specialist evokers (already the weakest mages) ...

That's one of the fundamental design flaws right there.

The evoker, or blast mage, should in theory be the best Wizard type to have along on an average adventure because - in a game that's largely based around killing things - she can blow stuff up! That said, she should also be the most dangerous to hang around with...high risk, high reward, and all that.

If the blast mage has been pushed aside by the utility mage that's kinda sad; utility types are fine, but boring to play; blast mages are way more fun!

Lanefan

 

[Neonchameleon]

If the blast mage has been pushed aside by the utility mage that's kinda sad; utility types are fine, but boring to play; blast mages are way more fun!

I disagree with this sentiment - I find utility mages fun. But utility mages are fun precisely because they are a challenge to play highly effectively. You should be having to work to get their ability. Not easily overwhelming and solving things.

 

[Magil]

If the blast mage has been pushed aside by the utility mage that's kinda sad; utility types are fine, but boring to play; blast mages are way more fun!

Hmmm, I don't know, but then, I don't know where you draw the line on "utility mage." For example, the illusionist and enchanter wizards (or mages) in 4th edition were extremely effective in combat, but again, that depends on exactly how the spells work more than anything. I would at least like it to remain viable to be able to rely on non-direct-damage spells like "Hold Monster" or "Grease."

 

[Hussar]

Well, blasty mages sucked for two reasons - massively increased HP for monsters, and WAY too many immunities. The damage for most spells wasn't increased from 2e to 3e, but the monsters got two to three times more HP, and gained all sorts of either resistances or flat out immunities. Never mind SR as well. So, yeah, the blasty mage got absolutely hosed.

I never understood why anyone would play a Warmage.