I like 3E, but I miss...

[Storm Raven]

um...

Note that if you had lower level characters, this worked to the PCs benefit. This made dual classing an even more attractive option, since the character was factored in at his current level (as, by the rules, except for his hit points, saves and attacks he was treated "for all other purposes" as a character of the level of his new class). This inflated the amount of experience awarded. As stated before, dual classing was 100% good, and 0% bad.

You know, in 10 years and multiple dozens of characters, made by a couple dozen different people, i think we had 2 dual-class characters--and one of those was dual-classed off screen, simply coming back to the game with the new abilities (and, for RPing reasons, pretty much ignoring the old abilities). I find it hard to accept that it was *that* universally and obviously good and yet i had a large group that never used it--there must be some campaign factors.

Your group probably just never realized the tremendously unbalanced potential of a dual classed character. Some people didn't. But when you work through the rules, it is clear, it was 100% good, and 0% bad.

I'm not sure the difference, but i suspect part of it was relatively slow advancement--a couple thousand XP, maybe every 2nd or 3rd session, doesn't get you through those low levels all that quickly.

It got you through a level each time experience was awarded. Did the higher level characters advance through their levels that fast?

If dual-classing is going to involve spending a season or two (real time) significantly lower than the rest of the party, it's a bit more of a disincentive [than if it's the bare minimum of one session per level].

It's a minimal disincentive. You kept your attack bonus, you kept your saves, you kept your hit points. The only thing you used at your "lower" level was your class specific abilities.

So, for example, if you were a 7th level fighter, who dual classed as a cleric, you were effectively a character with the hit points, saves, and attack capabilities of a 7th level fighter (although you were limited to blunt weapons until you reached 8th level as a cleric), plus you had minor (and rapidly increasing) clerical spell casting and turning capabilities. There is no drawback other than you couldn't use a longsword for several sessions, but you could still be decked out in plate and shield.

 

[woodelf]

[/b]Demonstrate. Many people make this claim, but no one yet has backed it up with an example. Make a 28 point character with appropriate wealth that is wildly unbalanced. Use 3.5. Core rules only.

For what campaign? It's pretty easy to make a fighter and a bard by the same rules and have the bard *way* more powerful than the fighter. How? Put them in a court setting where social skills are everything, and fighting is strengverboten, and focus on the bard's social abilities while min-maxing the fighter for optimal combat prowess to the expense of all else. Voila: horribly unbalanced characters.

Now, obviously you can change this, both at the level of making the character differently (though, in this particular scenario, the fighter is always gonna get shafted), and at the level of changing the rules. But, by the rules, D&D3E is only balanced to the degree that your game resembles the style of game for which it is balanced. Start to skew the relative importance of skills, social abilities, combat, magic, wilderness survival, traps, and so on, a lot, and the balance goes all out of whack.

The problem with absolute mechanical balance is that it can't take into consideration everything else (group, playstyle, setting, etc.). It can work pretty well for a narrowly-defined setting. But the more open-ended the actual play, the harder it is to pull it off. Point-buy systems run into this with things like fixed costs for "Can't swim"--regardless of whether the setting is Caribbean pirates or Tattoine. And there, the fix is the judgement call: adjust the costs for problem (dis)ads or skills (most even build this into the rules for the likely suspects). However, with a class-based system, this is a lot harder, because the factors you might need to adjust don't come in individual wrappers, they come in big packages. Not saying it can't be done, just that it needs to be done--balance is heavily campaign-dependent, and simply can't be embodied in the rules alone.

 

[woodelf]

[/b]
The important thing is the relative power level. And in terms of relative power level, 1st and 2nd Edition were badly out of whack. PCs of supposedly the same experience were of wildly different strength, to such an extent that gauging what would challenge them (as opposed to what they would roll over, or what would kill them instantly) was an enormous pain in the butt, and would potentially vary wildly within a given party.

I find that a little suspect. I ran an AD&D (mostly 2nd ed) campaign for years, and never ran into this problem. In fact, i was pretty new to the whole GMing thing at the time, and, especially early on, i did a lousy job of balancing encounters. I'd basically just eyeball it (which, for someone without much experience as a GM, isn't a terribly accurate method). I frequently misestimated wildly. And yet, i never had problems with balance between the PCs, in term of encounter effectiveness. Were the PCs of "wildly" different strength? Oh, heck yeah! Throw in a few magic items (not everybody had the same number, nor of the same power), and it only gets worse. My encounter planning was frequently not much better than random guessing, and yet i never ran into the problem you speak of.

The D&D3E game i was in ran into the problem a lot more--in order to give the brick a combat challenge, the creatures frequently had to be tough enough that most of the rest of us (including the other fighter) couldn't even hit them. Likewise, a creature that was a serious threat to the brick would take most other members of the party out in a round.

This is not to say that AD&D2 was better than D&D3E in this regard, just that it is only slightly worse, and the differences between them in this particular regard (class balance) are overshadowed by the differences between playgroups.

Plus, in 3e you have to actually work to "unbalance" a character, using supplements and tweaking a character through a dozen levels of advancement, picking just the right combination of feats, skills, and attributes.

Or just play in a game with little-to-no combat.

 

[Storm Raven]

For what campaign? It's pretty easy to make a fighter and a bard by the same rules and have the bard *way* more powerful than the fighter. How? Put them in a court setting where social skills are everything, and fighting is strengverboten, and focus on the bard's social abilities while min-maxing the fighter for optimal combat prowess to the expense of all else. Voila: horribly unbalanced characters.[/b]

No, they are not unbalanced. They just have different strengths and weaknesses. The problem of imbalance occurs when you have characters who are equal to or better than all other characters in a variety of areas. Having a vareity of strengths and weaknesses in a group of equivalently levelled characters is not a sign of imbalance, it is actually a sign of balance. If any one character could excel at all things, then he would be unbalanced.

For example, take the classic 1e Fighter/MU. At the same level of experience points, a 7th/8th level Ftr/MU would match a 7th level Ftr. The Ftr/MU is unbalanced, since, not only is he as good as the Ftr at fighting (and remember, Ftr/MUs in 1e could wear armor and cast spells), he has tacked on 8 levels of MU to boot. The Ftr/MU is equal to or better than the Ftr in every respect.

The same is true for any 1e multiclass you care to throw out there. Bascially, you have all (or virtually all) of the powers of a single classed individual of one of your classes at the same experience point total, and tack on all the class abilities of another class to boot. Show me a 3e 28 point character that is similarly unbalanced, someone who can equal or exceed a number of other characters in all areas.

 

[Storm Raven]

I find that a little suspect. I ran an AD&D (mostly 2nd ed) campaign for years, and never ran into this problem.

You have also said that you played in groups where multiclassing and dual-classing were rare. Which means that your PCs did you a huge favor by not exploiting one of the most overpowered loopholes in the game.

I'd say either you got (a) very lucky, or (b) are remembering your experiences with rose colored glasses. How many TPKs did you have by accident? How many did you have to stave off by secretly fudging the rolls? How often did one PCs start to outshine everyone else to an annoying extent?

In fact, i was pretty new to the whole GMing thing at the time, and, especially early on, i did a lousy job of balancing encounters. I'd basically just eyeball it (which, for someone without much experience as a GM, isn't a terribly accurate method). I frequently misestimated wildly. And yet, i never had problems with balance between the PCs, in term of encounter effectiveness. Were the PCs of "wildly" different strength? Oh, heck yeah! Throw in a few magic items (not everybody had the same number, nor of the same power), and it only gets worse. My encounter planning was frequently not much better than random guessing, and yet i never ran into the problem you speak of.

Not that you know of, or remember. Which, as I said before, makes you either incredibly lucky, or the victim of a selective memory.

The D&D3E game i was in ran into the problem a lot more--in order to give the brick a combat challenge, the creatures frequently had to be tough enough that most of the rest of us (including the other fighter) couldn't even hit them. Likewise, a creature that was a serious threat to the brick would take most other members of the party out in a round.

And yet, I have never had this problem. Of course, that is because I realized early on that you don't challenge the brick by giving him monsters with bigger hit points and higher ACs and attack bonuses. You challenge the brick by giving him combat situations that he has to solve by maneuver, combat tactics, and other things more than "I swing at the monster" stuff.

This is not to say that AD&D2 was better than D&D3E in this regard, just that it is only slightly worse, and the differences between them in this particular regard (class balance) are overshadowed by the differences between playgroups.

Of course, the main problem with 1e/2e was that the hugely unbalancing rules were written directly into the core rules, and hence, most DMs simply assumed they were fine and went with them. Never realizing that they were hideously broken.

Or just play in a game with little-to-no combat.

In 1e (and 2e to some extent) it was trivially easy to make a non-combat oriented character who dominated other characters both in and out of combat. Did you ever see the 1e bard in action? He would overwhelm every other character in just about every way.

 

[Grazzt]

Hey, do you actually know that's what he's doing, or is that just a turn of phrase? Last i'd heard, nobody'd been abple to actually get in touch with him--they closest anyone'd come was a family member who basically said, "he wants to be left alone."

WizaDru is correct. Trampier is still driving a cab (or was about a year ago). Me and another Necromancer Games persona decided to see if we could track him down and actually got a hold of the cab company where he WAS employed. He had quit that company about 3-4 months prior and moved to southern Illinois. We tried a few "leads" and made some phone calls, but nothing every came of it.

 

[woodelf]

You have also said that you played in groups where multiclassing and dual-classing were rare. Which means that your PCs did you a huge favor by not exploiting one of the most overpowered loopholes in the game.

No, i said dual-classing was rare. Multi-classing was fairly common--probably about half the PCs (without pulling out the character sheets--i still have most of them--to double check).

I'd say either you got (a) very lucky, or (b) are remembering your experiences with rose colored glasses. How many TPKs did you have by accident?

Zero. I've never run into the phenomenon personally, and it took me a fair bit to parse that acronym when i started running into it online. [And, i'll note that i managed to hang around on r.g.f.misc and r.g.f.advocacy for years before RPGnet or EnWorld came onlin, and nobody ever had need of that term in any context that i ever ran across. I find it a curious phenomenon, and it seems to strangely only be a frequent-enough occurrence in D&D games to have coined a phrase. Not saying that this is inherent to D&D of any flavor, or that it never happens in other games.] Partly, i believed in fudging, and partly i had players who knew i wasn't going to save them, and thus sensibly retreated when things got rough. A fair %age of battles ended in retreat, rather than victory for either side. This partly gets back to the fairness issue: For me, a game where every encounter is tailored in difficulty for the group may be "fair", but it isn't fun. I tailored encounters for the situation (make the guards of the temple as tough as the guards of that temple should be) and relied on the players to have some common sense (either find out ahead of time how powerful the guards are, or have a plan to retreat if you discover you're in over your head).

How many did you have to stave off by secretly fudging the rolls?

None that i recall. I remember saving individual characters through fudging or, more often, creative interpretation of ambiguous results. But those were few and far between, and the few battles where they were in over their heads, i don't think i had to do that. (And the party was typically 12-20+ PCs, so there was a fair bit of redundancy and a single PC death wouldn't, generally, cascade to everyone else.)

How often did one PCs start to outshine everyone else to an annoying extent?

Twice. Neither was because of the rules, and in fact they were specifically due to me ignoring/breaking the rules. Both were due to blatant GM favoritism (one of my brother's characters, and my girlfriend's character).

Not that you know of, or remember. Which, as I said before, makes you either incredibly lucky, or the victim of a selective memory.

Granting for the moment that my memory is sufficiently good on this point (something i can't really prove--and on which i could, of course, be wrong), there's probably another contributing factor. Except for the two guys i got into gaming with, and one of my brother's friends who learned D&D somewhere else, i introduced pretty much every one of my players to RPGs, and was their first (and, in most cases, for the run of my game, only) GM. Thus, their playstyles tended to be a reasonable mesh for mine and for each other because they didn't have any contrary examples of how to play. And, for me, balance is irrelevant--spotlight time is what matters. As long as everyone gets to contribute equally, it's all good, and you do *not* need balance to facillitate that. You need niche protection.

And yet, I have never had this problem. Of course, that is because I realized early on that you don't challenge the brick by giving him monsters with bigger hit points and higher ACs and attack bonuses. You challenge the brick by giving him combat situations that he has to solve by maneuver, combat tactics, and other things more than "I swing at the monster" stuff.

So, in other words, the classes are only properly balanced if you play in the style assumed? The further you stray from that (such as by using tougher, rather than more-capable, opponents to challenge a group of disparate combat ability), the less balanced it becomes?

Of course, the main problem with 1e/2e was that the hugely unbalancing rules were written directly into the core rules, and hence, most DMs simply assumed they were fine and went with them. Never realizing that they were hideously broken.

Hideously unbalanced? Sure. Hideously broken? Depends on what it takes for a ruleset to work for your group and playstyle. The only ways in which i found AD&D2 to be broken are things that are still there in D&D3E: fire-and-forget magic, the initiative/multiple attack system, alignment, probably some others i'm not thinking of right now. In fact, i, like most AD&D2 GMs i've known, had extensive houserules for the game. In my case, about 40pp of small type for the players, plus a bunch of tables and such that i didn't bother to give to them. And yet, when D&d3E came out, they had not fixed a single thing that i thought needed fixing--most were essentially unchanged, and a few things that i thought were broken they had made worse--and the things they felt needed fixing were things that i had left untouched--it either had never occurred to me that there was anything wrong with them, or i'd considered the problem so minor as to not be worth the effort to change. My point is not to rip on D&D3E, but to point out that "broken" is a very subjective term in RPGs. Your "broken" is my "not a problem", while your "fixed" is my "aaagh!".

I'm not dismissing your complaints--most of them are true and correct, as far as the rules go. But, simply looking at the rules in a vacuum is not a very useful measure of a game as open-ended as an RPG, IMHO, and proper balance is impossible for the rules, alone, to manage.

[btw: just in case you don't look at your own posts, it needs a typo fixed--it thinks there's a strikethrough.]

In 1e (and 2e to some extent) it was trivially easy to make a non-combat oriented character who dominated other characters both in and out of combat. Did you ever see the 1e bard in action? He would overwhelm every other character in just about every way.

Something which, in the game's defense, the game made very clear. But, no, i never actually saw anyone play a AD&D1 PH bard--in part because i read the rules and realized they were broken and said "no". Wish i'd had as much common sense when it came to 1e psionics.
Several people played the fixed bard from Dragon (and, in fact, we used that one in preference to the one in AD&D2 for a while).

 

[woodelf]

Except that games aren't life. Games are meant to be fun. And fair.

Fun? Yes. Fair? Depends. A game of Call of Cthulhu wouldn't be much fun if it were fair. For me, personally, a game where every challenge is scaled to the PCs isn't fun--i want the verissimilitude of varying challenges, some way too easy, some way too hard. I like playing radically underpowered characters.

Which, i suspect, is the crux of this argument. For some people, fairness is an important component of the fun factor in RPGs, and that includes the fairness of close mechanical balance between PCs. For others, fairness is either significantly less important, or can, if overzealously applied, actually detract from fun. Basically, the classis gamist vs. others (probably simulationists, in this case).

Add into these differing priorities differing experiences, and we're not likely to ever persuade one another. Saying "A is broken because it caused [or even just allowed] X to happen" simply can't be countered, because X did happen, and A was being used--and the causality of the matter is pretty fuzzy. Similarly, "B isn't broken because it prevented Y" can't be argued against--Y didn't occur, and B was being used. The fact that Y happened in another game, also using B, or that X didn't happen in a game using A, isn't a counter, it's just a different data point.

 

[woodelf]

No, they are not unbalanced. They just have different strengths and weaknesses. The problem of imbalance occurs when you have characters who are equal to or better than all other characters in a variety of areas. Having a vareity of strengths and weaknesses in a group of equivalently levelled characters is not a sign of imbalance, it is actually a sign of balance. If any one character could excel at all things, then he would be unbalanced.

For example, take the classic 1e Fighter/MU. At the same level of experience points, a 7th/8th level Ftr/MU would match a 7th level Ftr. The Ftr/MU is unbalanced, since, not only is he as good as the Ftr at fighting (and remember, Ftr/MUs in 1e could wear armor and cast spells), he has tacked on 8 levels of MU to boot. The Ftr/MU is equal to or better than the Ftr in every respect.

The same is true for any 1e multiclass you care to throw out there. Bascially, you have all (or virtually all) of the powers of a single classed individual of one of your classes at the same experience point total, and tack on all the class abilities of another class to boot. Show me a 3e 28 point character that is similarly unbalanced, someone who can equal or exceed a number of other characters in all areas.

OK, i think i see part of the problem: we're talking past each other. I was using "unbalanced" to refer to two characters who are not equally influential on the game over the course of the life of the characters (i.e., it doesn't count as unbalanced if it's for an encounter, or even an adventure, only if it's always, or on balance, for th ecampaign). You seem to be using "unbalanced" to refer to two characters that, no matter the situation or campaign they're dropped into, would lack equal influence. Is that correct?

Also, it sounds like you're only concerned about overbalanced characters, not underbalanced. Would you also consider it a problem if there was a by-the-book character that was less than most other characters in all (or nearly all) areas?

 

[woodelf]

While I agree in theory, my group played 1e/2e for so long that when the 'sense of wonder' eventually wore off, we were left with the unbalanced underpinnings of the system.

Bladesingers. Lots of Bladesingers.

*shudder*

You know, there's a reason some of us never used anything from the Complete Elflovers Handbook...

Though i'm not sure the "Complete" books, especially those after the first 5, should really be considered the "underpinnings of the system."