Legends and Lore: Balance

[Tony Vargas]

In fairness though, the original PHB Wizard didn't have good control options for at-will powers. The original at-will powers weren't great. The thing with this of course is that Arcane power - long before essentials - fixed this with new at-wills. Quite frankly essentials "fixed" something that was no longer a problem in the first place. Wizards were at no stage "underpowered" and even from the start were able to be immensely effective controllers - unless of course the person complaining was whinging they weren't able to instant win DnD anymore.

I can't understand the complaint about the Wizard's orginal at-wills. Every one of them was uniquely powerful compared to the other at-wills in the PH1.

Magic Missle, arguably the most lack-luster, was the only Range 20 at-will in the book (yes, there were 20/40 weapons, which is a slightly different thing), and was useable as an RBA. It was also the damage king for wizard at-wills, which is damning with faint praise, really. It could have been better. It may have been underpowered. It was the only one.

Ray of Frost, formerly a mere cantrip, /slowed/. No other at-will in the PH1 slowed.

Scorching Burst was the only Area Burst at-will in the PH1.

Thunderwave was the only Close Blast at-will in the PH1.

Cloud of Daggers was the only Zone-creating at-will in the PH1.

The Wizard's at-wills were outstanding. The Wizard's dailies were remarkably varied and powerful, as well. The Wizard also had the most widely-varied utilities.

The first two campaigns I played in after the release of 4e went from level 1 through 11. Both contained a wizard. I played the wizard in one of them. In both cases the wizard was stand-out effective. Not overwhelming the way it used to be, but easily keeping up with the other classes in terms of both overall contribution, and spot-light grabbing cool.


No class needs a boost less than the wizard.

Which makes a column Mike Mearls wrote some time ago about not wanting to expand the games power bloat all the more ironic. Apparently adding more powers to the Wizard is expanding the game while adding some to the Runepriest would be bloat. Totally.

The wizard has been getting substantial love throughout the run of 4e. A fair bit of that can probably be attributed to the demand for the overpowered wizard of old.

I don't know how much of my increasingly rather bitter and sarcastic ranting for over the past few months you have read, but I equally hate the fact that the fighter has billions of powers as well.

Nod. Some of what has been thrown at the fighter could probably have better been put into a new Martial class. A martial controller is conspicuous in it's absence, for instance. The Brawling fighter is a lot of fun, but it might well have worked even better as a build of some hypothetical martial controller class.

 

[Colmarr]

I want to understand this. I get that Essentials introduced a retro flavour, and you've listed some of the reasons why. But it seems a massive leap from there to doomsaying that the old notions of "balance" are somehow going to creep back into the game. Is that all you got?

I'm not a doomsayer (I'm nowhere near Tony on that particular spectrum) but I do have misgivings.

AEDU 4e was based around the idea that all characters should be comparable on all axes. While there were/are imperfections (aka Twin Strike) it's as close to objective balance as I think I've ever seen.

Compare that to 3e and earlier editions, when the martial/caster divide was skewed on two axes:

1. comparative power at differing levels (eg. martial classes are generally better at low levels, but quickly lose massive ground as the PCs level up); and
2. comparative power depending on the length of a adventuring day) (eg. martial classes are comparatively stronger the more encounters are squeezed into a day).

There's no reason why those skewed axes can't create overall balance, but 3 and a half editions into D&D we haven't seen it yet. It's a big call to suggest that we're going to see it from essentials design.

Now, it's fair to say that uniform AEDU balance hasn't existed in 4e since the psionic power source was released, but the psionics mechanics were at least pushing 4e forward.

There seems to be a very strong current trend of pushing 4e back toward earlier editions. Which I understand makes some gamers happy. Given how much I value game balance (and given my doubt that those skewed axes are going to be made to balance this time), it is for me cause for concern.

 

[Colmarr]

@Tony_V argas: I get what you are saying about the options in the poll... The problem is though that in order to then properly construct a poll by those standards, you need lots of possible answer choices. "Balance is very important, but fun is most important", "Balance is very important but options are most important", etc.

Actually, I expect Tony's concern is exactly why standard survey questions are phrased as:

"On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 meaning "not important at all" and 10 meaning "very important"), how important to you is balanced game design?"

I won't go so far as Tony and say the survey is phrased the way it is with the specific intention of misrepresenting the outcome of the poll, but the capacity to do so is certainly there. I find that concerning.

 

[triqui]

I'm not a doomsayer (I'm nowhere near Tony on that particular spectrum) but I do have misgivings.

AEDU 4e was based around the idea that all characters should be comparable on all axes. While there were/are imperfections (aka Twin Strike) it's as close to objective balance as I think I've ever seen.

I wish this would be true. 4e was based on the idea that all characters should be comparable *in combat*.

Once 4e defeated the paradigm "warriors must suck in battle", I really hope they do the same in 5e with the paradigm "warriors must suck with skills".

EDIT: yep, they are better than in 3e. In the same ways that a piece of crap is better than a piece of . They are still crap, though

 

[Jhaelen]

Now as I said, all in all I think wizards were fine at release, but much of their balance as it turns out came from their dailies.

Yup. After reading your post I remembered the bit about 'if you need to drop a role, drop the controller'.

I think the initial impression of the 4e wizard was just as wrong as the initial impression of the 3e monk. The only difference:
In the latter case it was deemed the class was totally overpowered, in the former it was the feeling that there wasn't anything you couldn't do better with a different class.

And, yes, the PHB2 classes were instrumental in understanding what a controller is all about.

 

[Bluenose]

And, while some groups may have a high tollerance for imbalance, how many have a low tollerance for balance? So you deliver some groups more balance than they need - it won't hurt them. You deliver less balance than they need, they'll be cursing your game. Spread some consumer surplus around.

There's already a way for such groups to have the imbalance they way. It's even something that they can point to and say has been in D&D from the beginning, so they're not having to do something different. They're called levels.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yup. After reading your post I remembered the bit about 'if you need to drop a role, drop the controller'.

That bit isn't really about controller classes being in any way lacking. Controllers help your party deal with large numbers of enemies, for instance. In a small party, you're not going to face as many enemies. In a large party, where you might face very large number of enemies, a single controller can still help you deal with them (throw out big area effects, create zones to enforce choke-points, etc). There are other, similar factors, but the upshot is, you really don't need more than one controller even in a large party, and, in a small party, you need the other roles more than you need that single controller.

The controller isn't weak, it's more that the controller is so capable, that having more than one is redundant, and a small party is not taking on big enough challenges to need the capability he provides.