Legends and Lore: Balance

[ppaladin123]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Balance of Power)

No strong conclusions but a good summary of the various ways in which "class balance" can be interpreted.

Random aside: I've always wondered whether wizards/sorcerers/other casters could be given their phenomenal cosmic powers in exchange for longer, multi-round casting times.

Maybe a wizard can incinerate a vrock in one hit, permanently blind his opponents, or open a portal to allow escape, but only after chanting for 3-5 rounds without getting smacked. The defender then becomes extremely important; he has to lock down enemy melee monsters long enough for the caster to finish his spell. Strikers like rogues, rangers and barbarians then specialize in slipping behind enemy lines and 1. disrupting/killing casters, and 2. keeping archers, blasters and other ranged combatants from targeting the wizard/invoker/psion/bard/shaman and blowing their spell.

This would necessitate rebalancing encounters and abilities so that they do not end in 2-3 rounds like they often do now. Care would have to be taken to prevent casters from speeding through incantations via metamagic or whatever. Also, spells that essentially replace party members (impenetrable shields or hordes of permanent undead or dominated minions that can be summoned ahead of time) would have to either disappear or involve rare components and/or serious sacrifice (so that they could not be cast often).

Variations on this idea could include increasing casting times for more and more powerful spells, chance to backfire as spell complexity increases, and physical damage/drain with each spell cast.

I've been thinking about this recently because of rituals. When 4e first came out I imagined battles where a ritual caster frantically tried to complete a powerful spell in the midst of battle while his companions fought back monsters to buy him time. I like that image because it grants caster players the mighty reality bending power they crave but leaves them seriously dependent on on their non-magical friends; the caster can't pull off anything if And the reverse is true too: the fighter isn't going to be able to destroy the dragon without some magical backup.

4e didn't really deliver on this idea since rituals are generally extremely expensive (they use the same resource, gold, that the system demands you spend to keep up with assumed mathematical progression of magic items), take 10 minutes or more to cast (combat rarely lasts that long), and often produce lackluster effects.

But, previous editions didn't do any better in this regard. The only limit on spells in 3e was spell slots available. At low levels the caster couldn't do much before falling back and resorting to a crossbow. At high levels they had so many slots that this wasn't a limitation at all. Spells never took more than a full round to cast regardless of level, and once meta-magic came into the picture, casters could lob 2-3 spells per round. Prior to 3e you had serious limits on the number of spells casters could find and learn, but again these aren't the types of limits I am looking for.

 

[LostSoul]

I don't agree with his conclusion.

I found this series of posts a lot better.

 

[Dannager]

Random aside: I've always wondered whether wizards/sorcerers/other casters could be given their phenomenal cosmic powers in exchange for longer, multi-round casting times.

Maybe a wizard can incinerate a vrock in one hit, permanently blind his opponents, or open a portal to allow escape, but only after chanting for 3-5 rounds without getting smacked. The defender then becomes extremely important; he has to lock down enemy melee monsters long enough for the caster to finish his spell. Strikers like rogues, rangers and barbarians then specialize in slipping behind enemy lines and 1. disrupting/killing casters, and 2. keeping archers, blasters and other ranged combatants from targeting the wizard/invoker/psion/bard/shaman and blowing their spell.

This would necessitate rebalancing encounters and abilities so that they do not end in 2-3 rounds like they often do now. Care would have to be taken to prevent casters from speeding through incantations via metamagic or whatever. Also, spells that essentially replace party members (impenetrable shields or hordes of permanent undead or dominated minions that can be summoned ahead of time) would have to either disappear or involve rare components and/or serious sacrifice (so that they could not be cast often).

This would be great except for one phenomenal flaw: the wizard gets to do nothing for three or four rounds. His player might as well go make a sandwich and play some Angry Birds.

4e didn't really deliver on this idea since rituals are generally extremely expensive (they use the same resource, gold, that the system demands you spend to keep up with assumed mathematical progression of magic items),

The game requires that you spend some of it to keep up with the game's math. Not all of it. The assumed treasure allotment gives you plenty of leftover gold to buy extra items or pay for rituals. Furthermore, a ritual's cost is typically static - you get the same result for the same cost no matter what level you are. Past a certain point, many rituals become essentially free to perform.

 

[FireLance]

This would be great except for one phenomenal flaw: the wizard gets to do nothing for three or four rounds. His player might as well go make a sandwich and play some Angry Birds.

Nothing wrong with that, provided this isn't the only way to play a wizard. I'd like a game engine flexible enough to handle both wizards who spend three rounds casting in order to unleash Phelnor's Ultimate Mega-Spell of Doom and wizards who spend three rounds casting (in approximate order) cold blast, lightning blast, and acid blast and have them roughly balanced with each other.

I personally think that the 4E engine is able to handle something like this. One possibility is metamagic Encounter attack spells that cost a standard action and basically grant an Effect: You gain a +4 power bonus to the next attack roll you make with an arcane attack spell before the end of the encounter. If you hit, you deal + 4d6 extra damage. If you take damage before you make the attack roll, you gain a +1 power bonus to the attack roll instead, and you deal +1d6 extra damage if the attack hits.

 

[Dannager]

Nothing wrong with that, provided this isn't the only way to play a wizard. I'd like a game engine flexible enough to handle both wizards who spend three rounds casting in order to unleash Phelnor's Ultimate Mega-Spell of Doom and wizards who spend three rounds casting (in approximate order) cold blast, lightning blast, and acid blast and have them roughly balanced with each other.

I personally think that the 4E engine is able to handle something like this. One possibility is metamagic Encounter attack spells that cost a standard action and basically grant an Effect: You gain a +4 power bonus to the next attack roll you make with an arcane attack spell before the end of the encounter. If you hit, you deal + 4d6 extra damage. If you take damage before you make the attack roll, you gain a +1 power bonus to the attack roll instead, and you deal +1d6 extra damage if the attack hits.

It would be a cool option to have in the game, but I fear it would be one of those situations where, in your typical game group, it would be relegated to the "anyone but me" status that clerics had in previous editions.

If you could figure out a way to inject "action" into the multi-round build-up to the wizard's spell (with meaningful round-to-round choices and perhaps some rolling), it could be a worthwhile option. You'd have to make it as exciting round-to-round as playing a "normal" class.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I would prefer to see a recovery time mechanic. Get the big spell off and hen have to wiat till the next spell, using darts, or whatever

More fun to wait after than worry about getting hit beforehand.

 

[Aegeri]

Why does this always center around "Why isn't magic better?!" as an argument.

Surely we can have the truly exciting encounter where the fighter needs to move a REALLY BIG boulder while the magic users defend him. How equally thrilling and exciting!

 

[FireLance]

It would be a cool option to have in the game, but I fear it would be one of those situations where, in your typical game group, it would be relegated to the "anyone but me" status that clerics had in previous editions.

If you could figure out a way to inject "action" into the multi-round build-up to the wizard's spell (with meaningful round-to-round choices and perhaps some rolling), it could be a worthwhile option. You'd have to make it as exciting round-to-round as playing a "normal" class.

It's a testament to the variation in human opinion that I already think it's a viable option!

Really, it boils down to what's your favored playstyle. I'm sure that there are players who enjoy the round-to-round excitement of rolling dice, but I am equally sure that there are players who will happily spend their turns meticulously putting together a massive attack (without the need to roll dice) before unleashing it on the third round. And I believe that a system flexible enough to support both playstyles is better than one that can support only one or the other.

 

[FireLance]

Why does this always center around "Why isn't magic better?!" as an argument.

Surely we can have the truly exciting encounter where the fighter needs to move a REALLY BIG boulder while the magic users defend him. How equally thrilling and exciting!

I'm not sure if that's sarcasm, but we certainly can. It could be an encounter where the rest of the party has to hold off a continuous stream of attackers while the fighter makes Strength checks break down a door, or the rogue makes Thievery checks to unlock it so that they can escape. Or maybe the party does need to roll a heavy boulder down a slope to destroy a siege engine. Certain powerful (martial) attacks may also require a few rounds' worth of concentration, meditation, or focusing of internal energies to pull off, or the fighter could gain a bonus to the attack and damage rolls of his next attack by spending a standard action (and an encounter attack power) to study his opponents' fighting style.

 

[FireLance]

I would prefer to see a recovery time mechanic. Get the big spell off and hen have to wiat till the next spell, using darts, or whatever

More fun to wait after than worry about getting hit beforehand.

At least for me, working towards a big attack (and not knowing if you will succeed) creates more tension than unleashing a big attack and being restricted to less effective attacks afterward. However, if that's the playstyle you like, I'm not going to tell you you're doing it wrong.

I can certainly see the possibility of powers that trade off some extra damage for limiting the character to at-will or even basic attacks for the next one or two rounds.

From a balance perspective, however, extra damage in the first round is usually "worth" more than the same amount of extra damage in the third round because killing enemies faster tends to mean that you get attacked less in return. So, the extra damage should be less than the extra damage from a power (or series of powers) that generate extra damage in the second or third round.