I hate game balance!

[mmu1]

It does. Every edition of the DMG has had words to that effect.

The people who are going to be asshats never listen to that advice, for some reason. And there have been tons of articles written on how to be a good GM, almost all of them reinterating the same advice. I have not seen an appreciable effect on the GM population.

In that case, you could very well argue that since the people never change, any attempts to impose "balance" from on high aren't going to do much to solve this problem.

The obvious solution, regardless of system, is to find people you're happy playing with. Frankly, I can't imagine gaming long-term with anyone whose play I could tolerate only because he was being held in check by the rules...

 

[Greg K]

It does. Every edition of the DMG has had words to that effect.

The people who are going to be asshats never listen to that advice, for some reason. And there have been tons of articles written on how to be a good GM, almost all of them reinterating the same advice. I have not seen an appreciable effect on the GM population.

Then the other piece of advice would be, " Don't play with asshats!" Anyone that ignores that advice deserves what they get.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, thanks for the apology, as I was about to smack you. As to your argument that the mage used to be able to overshadow all other characters, I agree that in 3.5 that was the case. I would also say that in 3.0 it was the priest that was the uber-class.

But 2d edition had it right. Yes, a mage became very powerful at upper levels, but his mighty magical power was for naught in a melee fight. And spells? Well, he never got them automatically and had to search and adventure to find even the least powerful of spells. The DM was able to control the power level of the wizard simply by restricting access to spells. And what about "spells per day?" I seem to recall that a wizard had very few spells each day in his arsenal. Notwithstanding any of the foregoing, isn't this a "roleplaying" game? Why are we talking about "game balance" for such a creature?

I guess our experiences differed. 2nd edition was worse than 3rd!

Unless your DM severely hamstringed the mage by keeping his spell access minimal, most mages got the spells they needed to dominate. Disintegrate. Finger of Death. Improved Invisibility. Telekinesis. Fly. Teleport. Stoneskin. A wizard with access to most if not all of these spells was no longer a puny acranist any fighter could put to the sword. He was flying 60 ft in air, invisible, with immunity to 1d4+1 2/caster levels worth of non-magic (including vorpral) weapons, hurling lighting bolts, green-rays of doom, and the omnipotent magic "always hits" missile. What, exactly, was the guy in plate mail with a longsword and shield (even +5 magical ones) going to do against that?

And if the fighter was screwed, least he had that 18/% str and extra attacks to rely on. What did our 2e thief get? Oh, 8 skills with % chance of failure, 5dX damage if he could sneak up on a foe (not merely flank) and a 15% chance to kill the party with an arcane scroll. Right...

And the only reason 2e priests didn't rule the day was sphere access and the typical need to devote 2 out every 3 spell slots to cure X wounds or something similar. Sure, 3.0 went overboard on clerics, but it was probably a reaction to the 2e syndrome of clerics being walking medicine chests or holy-spinning-wheels-of-death (when faiths and avatars "fixed" them)

 

[mmu1]

Sadly, the situation you describe has never been the case in D&D.

Ah, the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from having seen the impossible with my own two eyes.

Truly, I have been blessed. I've seen 3E NPCs created in under 2 hours, high-level combats that didn't lead to any suicides, miscarriages or divorces, skill point allocation that didn't cause anyone to bleed from the eyes, and games in which the classes were different and "unbalanced" and everyone had fun.

 

[Rechan]

The biggest problem I had with "game balance" is the ease in which one could make an utterly useless character.

Too many people I have known who have made the Bard2/Cleric1/Rog3 with an Underwater Basketweaving feat because "that's just the character" - and then they end up feeling utterly ineffective in any situation where they're rolling a polyhedrian. These are the players that would be happy without having a character sheet in front of them at all.

When 95% of the rules are written for combat, and you suck at combat, any time combat happens, you're not going to have fun. And that's a lot of not-fun when it comes to combat-intensive games like D&D.

When I DMed with two of these people in my group, I had to work hard at accommodating them because otherwise they would've been bored and frustrated to no end.

And before I hear another "Well just don't play with them", look. Maybe you live in a gamer mecca, but in some areas of the country, gamers are rare. You play with who you have, or you don't play.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, I agree with the OP, broadly speaking.

I'm also really sick of the "CODzilla" hyperbole, and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth of people who apparently got beaten up by Wizards in grade school and had their milk money stolen.

In all the time I've played D&D, I ran one long-term character that was a caster. I played lots of Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers and Rogues (or combination thereof), though, and the only time I can think of that I ended up feeling my character was irrelevant was because of pretty specific campaign design issues, not Clerics and Wizards.

I've never played in games where the 15-minute adventuring day was the norm, where the fact spells are a limited resource didn't matter, or where you had unlimited amounts of time to buff your character, either.

Of course, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before someone tells me I'm wrong, because it's actually impossible to have a fun 3.5 game.

Actually, I had fun in 3.5, 2e, and BECMI. Until level 9. Then the game stopped being fun for anyone other than the wizard and/or cleric. I was then that the martial/mundane classes fell off the map and the spellcasters dominated. If you were the wizard and/or cleric (and the cleric ifandonlyif you weren't the walking medicine chest) the game was great fun. If you were the fighter or the thief/rogue, you watched your role get squished into a pulp and you simply became the wizards groupies keeping the hordes off him until he could unleash the Terror From Above spell and end the encounter. Weee!

 

[Remathilis]

Character Rule 1: It is up to the characters to find the way to survive and succeed. Period. Finis. Life is not fair. Death is even more unfair. Deal with it.

Rule 2: I stay home. I win.

 

[mmu1]

And before I hear another "Well just don't play with them", look. Maybe you live in a gamer mecca, but in some areas of the country, gamers are rare. You play with who you have, or you don't play.

...well, sorry, I just don't see D&D as special or important enough that I'd want to tolerate people I actually disliked for the sake of playing it.

(I really, really like D&D, but the only place I'll tolerate spending a lot of time with people who piss me off is one where I get paid for it - not the other way around.)

 

[redcard]

Actually, I had fun in 3.5, 2e, and BECMI. Until level 9. Then the game stopped being fun for anyone other than the wizard and/or cleric. I was then that the martial/mundane classes fell off the map and the spellcasters dominated. If you were the wizard and/or cleric (and the cleric ifandonlyif you weren't the walking medicine chest) the game was great fun. If you were the fighter or the thief/rogue, you watched your role get squished into a pulp and you simply became the wizards groupies keeping the hordes off him until he could unleash the Terror From Above spell and end the encounter. Weee!

I hated playing a Rouge for what you describe. It was like, nope, no real use for you. The wizard can actually turn COMPLETELY invisible. The best you can do is hide.

*sighs*

It's like your job getting sent overseas.

And then being asked to protect the guy who took it.

 

[Rechan]

Sidenote:

I find the topic of "Wizards rule" really funny. The only time I ever really played a wizard in a game was waaay back in 3.0, under a friend in HS. Who did not follow the rules closely. Who heavily catered to the melee people in the group (who was everyone but me). I actually quit because I felt, well, ignored.