D&D 5E I think Wizards balances classes using damage on a single target nova over 3 rounds.

[ECMO3]

Why continually make statements with admittedly zero proof? Ten years after the fact. What does this achieve?

Because someone replied to a post of mine and offered zero proof to back up their claim that I was objectively wrong.

Why does the need for proof only seem to come up on one side of this debate in response to positions stated as an opinion, when the other rarely offers evidence of any kind to back up positions presented as definitive fact?

 

[Incenjucar]

Yes everyone's edition can beat up everyone else's edition.

So how about mechanics.

 

[ECMO3]

And this is precisely why D&D will always crap on Fighters. The bolded bit is the problem.

A game built on teamwork absolutely should not have a class that is specifically designed to be more powerful than everyone else. That is literally contradictory to the fundamental goal of the game, to play together. (And if it were competitive, that would be even worse, to be clear. There is no refuge in escaping from "cooperative multiplayer" to "competitive multiplayer"!) Making one class more powerful than any other is a staple of only one kind of game: single-player.

And as Ruin Explorer said, it is obvious from the design of every WotC edition that its creators want to make a balanced game. Even 5e.


I believe the statement was not meant to pick between plate or rapiers, but to pick between:

• "very primitive pre-Renaissance worlds with very limited technology"
• full plate and rapiers (whether separately or together)

Full plate, rapiers, and guns were all very late-Medieval/early-Renaissance developments. Hence why I call the stock RPG setting "pseudomedieval faux-European quasi-Tolkienesque schizotech fantasy." Because most folks absolutely forbid you to have guns or even cannons for it to be a "medieval Fantasy setting," but absolutely require that you have plate armor which is newer than cannons and possibly newer than actual "handgonnes."

Good point on the Plate and Rapiers. After reading, I agree.

Regarding balance, I do think it is necessary for a competitive game. I don't think balance is necessary for a cooperative game and certainly it is not universally practiced in other cooperative games. In team sports where one team is cooperating against another there is not generally balance between the individual players, yet the players on a team all cooperate towards a common goal. This is true whether we are talking about professional football or sandlot baseball.

Same with card games like Pinochle where a team of 2 cooperates against another team of 2 and on the team that won the bid there is generally a very disproportionate power relationship between the players with the biding player typically having a much stronger hand than the non-bidding player being in a supporting role. The non-bidding player usually intentionally weakens his own hand to strengthen the bidding players hand. Yet they cooperate to win the round together.

In Family Fued there is one "leader" on each team with others being in a subordinate and to a degree supportive role and only 2 out of 5 (or 6?) actually get to play in the finale.

Those are a few examples of cooperative games where there is not parity between individuals cooperating.

Finally even if balance between classes were achieved, this won't bring balance to the game because of the disparity in the expertise of the players. An experienced player, playing a fighter, is generally going to be better than an inexperienced player playing a Wizard and while class balance can conceivably be achieved by game designers, player balance can't be and even on a local level it is very difficult to achieve at any friendly game at all IME.

If balance is really important to everyone having fun, then we should logically steer inexperienced players to the most capable classes so the class abilities can make up for the shortage in player expertise, and likewise put the most experienced players on the least capable classes, like Fighters and Monks. Most tables that play with newbies either do exactly the opposite of this, or let people play what they want without worrying about balance (and that works the best IME).

 

[Theory of Games]

Ive currently been looking into kinda how they loosely balance the budget of power of classes and after some minor resources and referencing some things in the DMG, and words of Crawford like them assuming characters are at full power for encounters. And somethings they have said about the adventuring day, and how they account for everything on "virtual damage" which i have a whole post about here. And i think i've kinda got a working theory for it, and its kinda obvious now looking at some stuff. I think they balance the classes basically kinda like how they calculate DPR via CR, and HP.

Which is over 3 rounds, doing as much as they can to get as much single-target damage as possible over 3 rounds. And once you view the games balance this way, a lot of things start to make more sense.

If you run the math of the total damage(using all resources) of a class over 3 round periods, they always come around the same exact ranges of power, which is around 27ish at level 5, 11th level around 40 damage, and at level 17 around 60-70 damage.(Some classes like Rogue and Barbarian tend to have specific subclass features that chart them up to this damage especially notable on Thief and Berserker, they also account for advantage generation too.)

Its is extremely consistent with a notable exception.

Fighters, Wizards and Sorcerers. These classes seem to be what Wizards value as the "Damage" classes. They are specifically meant to do more damage then the average classes and are all seen as in parity with each other in DPR. Its why you notice all of the real "overtuned" spells in terms of raw directly done damage are usually Wiz/Sorc spells. For example the 3 round dpr of a fighter spending basically everything vs a wizard spending all of their strongest spell slots seems to consistently hit around a 104-114 range of damage, specifically.(though there are some variables heres).

This goes back to that "virtual damage" thing i posted yesterday...they value everything as damage, even utility effects, so in their eyes, a fighter action surging and spending all of their resources to them at level 20, is about the power of a 9th-level spell to them the high end. Thats all they seem to really care about here.

Now the question some are asking are?

What about AoEs? Thats simple! They ignore them...

Why? Because they value above all else Actual Power, not potential(crawford goes into this here.)

They do not view AoE's power as Actual power because.

1. Their might not be multiple targets in a fight
2. Even if they are around, they might not be anywhere near each other position-wise(such as flanking, cross formations, Frontline/Backline, or just being separated, all common scenarios.)

This leads to AoEs not being quite as counted for at all, the only time they seem to consider it for spell damage is when the radius of the spell is comically huge. And as for big swarm situations, AoE is always good there no matter how they slice it, and nerfing it to account for something not even guaranteed, which leads it to it feeling bad, so they rather it feels good there.

This also explains why they do not value the conjure spells, and things like it, because those spells also have high potential power, but their actual power is not guaranteed, since they usually are.

1. DM dependant, especially the conjure spells
2. Can be killed or lose concentration on before doing anything over budget(especially true when they test without feats, so War Caster/Resilient cant save the day).

So in short, when it comes to balance, they mainly look for guaranteed single-target damage assuming all classes are doing as much as possible to get as much damage as possible over 3 rounds.

So what about resource management?

The resource management game in their eyes isnt spending a certain amount of resources over a day(they only care about health for that). The resource management game is choosing when you nova or choose not to nova.

How this factors into the balance of the classes, is that their novas with the exception of the big damage classes such as Fighter/Wizard/Sorc are all around similar power to each other. The non-damage classes usually have something to compensate in their eyes(for example. Clerics have healing and lots of powerful buffs and more active class features/better hit dice/armor, and so on then Wiz/Sorc, Rouge in their eyes basically has 2 turns of actions with cunning action that can rapidly generate advantage/defense, and is very good at skills).

And the balance in their eyes of Martials(and warlock) vs casters is actually also quite simple.

Its nova recovery. Martials(and warlock) nova tend to be either

1. Recoverable by short rests. (Fighter/Monk)
2. Long-lasting. (Barbs Rage lasts a whole fight usually, and Rogues nova is simply conditioned on getting advantage).

The gimmick of casters to them is, once they spend their nova(their strongest 3 spell slots), they view casters as being behind the curve the rest of the day, and only declining, so in exchange, they get utility and/or AoE where they can exchange their lower damage output instead for useful abilities that give them advantages in certain situations or help the team regardless. Its also why high-level spell slots such as 7th+ are so powerful, more so than previous tiers. Because in their eyes, they are giving up their nova for the day to do something more useful outside of combat.

It also explains why 10-minute short rests in a lot of people's eyes, adjust the balance to feel way better. Because that Nova Recovery part is now specifically highlighted and empowered.

It also shows why short rests they do not wish to take 10 minutes, because to them, that resource management game is choosing when to do that nova or not do it, that decision is important to them, and making it 10 minutes on base probably trivializes it to them. It also further explains why stuff like Heroic Resting is seen as a perfectly balanced option, because that's specifically for games where they dont want resource management to matter at all and its just a nova game, the only reason they restrict higher-level spell slots, in that case, is probably due to the power of their utility effects mainly.

It also reveals that its mainly a tone/pacing tool for them, and at base they rather it in the game.

It also highlights the main flaw with their caster design which some non-damage dealing spells and conditions are simply a bit too strong, and need to be brought down a bit(which is why thats likely the only magic nerf casters will see in 1DnD). It also shows why they felt some abilities(Like twinned spell, stunning strike, hex/HM and quivering palm) were too strong in the playtests and they hand to nerf them down a lot because they really value and account for that big nova all in, resources be damned. And those abilities would REALLY overshoot in their eyes that budget of power.

Another thing viewing the game this way reveals is how Magic Items are balanced. Since the game is valued around novas, the balance of magic items seems to be around basically reflecting the player's power directly and not giving them anymore power than they already have, just more utility. Each magic item has about a certain spell level power in it at maximum.

(From the DMG p285)

Uncommon max power is 3rd-level

Rare's Max power is 6th-level

Very Rare's max power is 8th-level

Legendary's max power is 9th-level.

In the distribution table, once you enter the tier of play where characters innately have a certain spell level of power pretty much at will, they start to give you a lot of magic items of that rarity, you can see this in the Magic item tables distribution, and in Xanathars when they laid it all out.

For example, at 5th-level your expected to get a lot more uncommon magic items. Why? Because everyone has 3rd-level spells of power already, so at that point they just see it as you just getting more options, not any more power then you already have. Meaning in their eyes you can kinda just hand them out. This keeps going on in each tier, with rares becoming more common around tier 3, and very rares around tier 4. They also expect you to give a bit of the tier about(Like Rares in tier 2) but usually, only a very small amount of them, as that gives some power, but not too much over what characters already do nearing the end of the tier.

All and i this is most of everything i've noticed looking at trends in the math in this game, I am no mathematician, i am probably wrong in some places, most data i found assuming baseline classes and subs(with the exception of champ fighter because the math behind that is a bit fucky) no feats, no magic items so on, assuming the usual 65% baseline. correct me if i'm off anywhere, test it yourselves, if im wrong call me out, this is just a theory, but all i can say is, since viewing the game's design this way, the decisions and choices by the designer's perspective make 100% more sense to me.

I also can clearly see the errors in the design of the game too, and how they should adjust it to be better, and how they can manipulate these budgets to make the game a better experience for all.

TLDR. WoTC seems to value Single Target Guaranteed DPR in a Nova over 3 rounds, and balances the game around that not too dissimilar to how they calculate the power of CR. And that seems to reflect every design decision and choice they have made when viewed this way, and what they gauge class power around. The core resource management of the game is about novaing now or later, and how can classes recover their novas.

I LOVE how you rockskipped over the obvious here.

Wizards.

There's NO BALANCE IN D&D.

I keep telling people this over and over like Alex Jones screaming about the Federal Reserve. Any encounter is EASILY handled by a wizard with the right spells slotted. It's like vintage Mike Tyson vs. Napoleon Dynamite. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. Stop dismissing the power of mages finally. What're going to do? Shoot em in the neck with an arrow? This is when the mage's player/GM says there's no hit locations in D&D. You got me in the neck. At best. Now go to sleep OR go crazy OR be my best friend and kill your friends you met to go into that hole in the ground called a dungeon. Mages rewrite player agency like bad game designers and there is NOTHING you can do about it. Not with D&D/DND. Despite Gygax's very best efforts wizards rule the game top to bottom. I know: I put my entire party to sleep because they wanted to go back to the dungeon when I had gold to spend. Uh. NO. I'll buy breakfast when you guys wake up. Off to IKEA!! YEAH!! Who can defy the will of someone who can defy reality itself? STOP TALKING ABOUT D&D AND BALANCE. Any scenario you create I can poopoo on and you know it. Wait?!?!? That guy has a sword?!?!? OH NO! Now I gotta loot another body of some guy who thought his +4 attacks actually MEANT SOMETHING when I can WHISPER nonsense words, wiggle my fingers and throw some junk from my pocket

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Good point on the Plate and Rapiers. After reading, I agree.

Regarding balance, I do think it is necessary for a competitive game. I don't think balance is necessary for a cooperative game and certainly it is not universally practiced in other cooperative games. In team sports where one team is cooperating against another there is not generally balance between the individual players, yet the players on a team all cooperate towards a common goal. This is true whether we are talking about professional football or sandlot baseball.

Same with card games like Pinochle where a team of 2 cooperates against another team of 2 and on the team that won the bid there is generally a very disproportionate power relationship between the players with the biding player typically having a much stronger hand than the non-bidding player being in a supporting role. The non-bidding player usually intentionally weakens his own hand to strengthen the bidding players hand. Yet they cooperate to win the round together.

In Family Fued there is one "leader" on each team with others being in a subordinate and to a degree supportive role and only 2 out of 5 (or 6?) actually get to play in the finale.

Those are a few examples of cooperative games where there is not parity between individuals cooperating.

Finally even if balance between classes were achieved, this won't bring balance to the game because of the disparity in the expertise of the players. An experienced player, playing a fighter, is generally going to be better than an inexperienced player playing a Wizard and while class balance can conceivably be achieved by game designers, player balance can't be and even on a local level it is very difficult to achieve at any friendly game at all IME.

If balance is really important to everyone having fun, then we should logically steer inexperienced players to the most capable classes so the class abilities can make up for the shortage in player expertise, and likewise put the most experienced players on the least capable classes, like Fighters and Monks. Most tables that play with newbies either do exactly the opposite of this, or let people play what they want without worrying about balance (and that works the best IME).

Why does "balance" mean "being perfectly uniform and identical"?

It absolutely should not mean that in most games. That is only the worst, least-interesting, laziest form of balance. Why would you attack only that, and not much more interesting (albeit difficult) things, like asymmetrical balance?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There's NO BALANCE IN D&D.

Yes, there is. It's not very good, in part because its makers don't tend to put in the time it needs. But it is there, and they do strive for it.

And that's exactly the reason why so many people--including many like you who claim "balance" doesn't exist in D&D--cried foul over the addition of silvery barbs.

The fact that there was such a hue and cry over a spell that isn't actually that strong is objective proof that D&D both contains balance, and that players want balance in D&D. They just don't always agree on what "balance" means. (I would also argue that some people have a simply faulty idea of what "balance" means, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

 

[ECMO3]

Yes, there is. It's not very good, in part because its makers don't tend to put in the time it needs. But it is there, and they do strive for it.

And that's exactly the reason why so many people--including many like you who claim "balance" doesn't exist in D&D--cried foul over the addition of silvery barbs.

The fact that there was such a hue and cry over a spell that isn't actually that strong is objective proof that D&D both contains balance, and that players want balance in D&D. They just don't always agree on what "balance" means. (I would also argue that some people have a simply faulty idea of what "balance" means, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.)

I am fine with Silvery Barbs. The only people I have heard complain about it are a small minority on this forum and some of the people I play with that use VTTs where it is difficult to program and those people complain about Absorb Elements more.

I have only actually seen it banned in one game, but that game banned all setting-specific content, including races, spells etc from every setting book except for SODQ (it was a Krynn-focused game).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am fine with Silvery Barbs. The only people I have heard complain about it are a small minority on this forum and some of the people I play with that use VTTs where it is difficult to program and those people complain about Absorb Elements more.

I have only actually seen it banned in one game, but that game banned all setting-specific content, including races, spells etc from every setting book except for SODQ (it was a Krynn-focused game).

I can assure you, it wasn't just this forum. Several WotC forum threads, endless YouTube videos and blog posts...it was a big controversy. Or should I say nontroversy, because everyone got all worked up about it and then dropped it like 2-3 months later.

This isn't even the biggest such controversy, it's just one that I know got around. The biggest one was the Tasha's playtest content, "Spell Versatility" for Sorcerers (which would have let them change out one known spell per short rest.) People got openly hateful in there, and I kid you not, they celebrated and "rejoiced" when it was removed.

 

[ECMO3]

Why does "balance" mean "being perfectly uniform and identical"?

Can you point out where I said this in the post you quoted? I don't see it anywhere in what I have said on this thread.

It absolutely should not mean that in most games. That is only the worst, least-interesting, laziest form of balance. Why would you attack only that, and not much more interesting (albeit difficult) things, like asymmetrical balance?

I am not attacking anything and one of things I suggested - having experienced players play Fighters and noobs play more powerful classes like Wizards - is actually an example of attempting to achieve "asymmetrical" balance by pairing players with an advantage in the game with characters that are at a disadvantage.

 

[ECMO3]

This isn't even the biggest such controversy, it's just one that I know got around. The biggest one was the Tasha's playtest content, "Spell Versatility" for Sorcerers (which would have let them change out one known spell per short rest.) People got openly hateful in there, and I kid you not, they celebrated and "rejoiced" when it was removed.

I would not have been a fan, but it wouldn't bothered me a whole lot either. TBH I am more concerned about giving Clerics and Rogues Armor proficiency on a multiclass, and that has nothing at all to do with power.

I think in the new ONE playtest they are all prepared casters now, are they not?