Might vs Magic

[Meophist]

I'd rather not pad out my game sessions with a lot of fighting just for the sake of fighting. If a fight exists just to drain a few resources and nothing else, it just fills up time in a game session that can be pressed for time as it is. That is why game balance built around having multiple fights packed into each in-game day can be a problem.

I suppose that's legitimate, but without it, any concept of long-term resources kinda goes away. Perhaps the best answer would to have quicker battles. Make it so that you can play through a number of battles in a single hour. Each battle should be fun and enjoyable, of course, but the focus being on the adventure as a whole rather than each individual moment.

...Maybe I just play too many video games.

In any case, the previous post was made somewhat in jest. I don't think Dungeons and Dragons should really mandate anything. Different players and DMs from different tables vary too much.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Firelance said in another thread "A fighter is a martial, weapon-using character who is as effective as his spellcasting companions at all levels of the game and in all situations, with perhaps a slight advantage in combat."

Which has me wondering, Why should a fighter be as effective as a spellcaster at everything?

'Effective' is pretty broad. A 4e fighter goes about being effective very differently from a caster, especially if that caster isn't a defender, for instance.

But, rough parity is called for, otherwise, you have players punished for their character concept.

Frankly it wouldn't bother me a bit if Mages were useless at combat but could do things no one else could outside of it.

The Archetypal fantasy wizard, Gandalf, almost never used magic in combat. Usually he just hit things with a sword. Merlin didn't fight that I recall.

Nod. It might not work well in every campaign, though. In a campaign with a rough balance of combat and non-combat, your and other non-combat players would be bored half the time, and the combative ones the other half.

It makes sense to try to keep all the players engaged in the whole game.

Of course, this is D&D. We expect magic missiles and fireballs. Flying carpets and enchanted swords.

Indeed.

And modern roleplaying expectations want everyone to be able to contribute to every scene.

If they don't, if contributions vary too much from character to character and type of scene to type of scene, then the setting starts to crimp the style of DM and player alike.

What do you guys think? Should "balance" be as hardwired in to the system as it was in 4e?

4e balance was good, but it still needed improvement. Particularly when you left combat. In combat, balance was solid. Out of combat, some classes got lots of useful skills, or got rituals, or got dual-use utilities that worked in or out of combat, and others, well, didn't. If you added non-combat resources that were balanced among all the classes independent of their combat abilities, you could significantly improve on 4e.

Should it be as ignored as it was in 1e?

Oh, balance was never ignored. Did you notice how everyone had a different exp chart? An attempt at balance (theives, for instance, kinda whimpy on a level-by-level basis, but they level up /faster/). Spells/day, interruption, components, casting time? Attempting to balance the power of spells. 1d4 hps for a 1st level mage and only 1 spell? trying to balance the enormous power he'd have at high level. Etc, etc...

Or should there be dial settings for the GM to achieve what he wants for his campaign?

That'd be quite a lot of complexity on top of the modular choices players are aparently going to be getting. It probably wouldn't be any harder to just modify a balanced system. Imbalance is easy to introduce, very hard to fix.

 

[WheresMyD20]

As long as all of the classes play a useful role on the adventuring team, then the game is balanced.

Arguing about balance between classes is like arguing balance between positions on a football team. Are quarterbacks and running backs balanced? How about wide receivers and defensive linemen? All of those positions are needed in order to have a complete team, so arguing balance is pointless.

A D&D adventuring party should be like that. You should need a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue to have a complete party. Arguing whether fighters or wizards are better should be pointless because you should need them both.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A D&D adventuring party should be like that. You should need a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue to have a complete party. Arguing whether fighters or wizards are better should be pointless because you should need them both.

Y'know, arguably, D&D has never delivered that, not for each role across all levels. Even in 4e, where the classes are better-balanced than ever, the controller role is often considered dispensible.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Y'know, arguably, D&D has never delivered that, not for each role across all levels. Even in 4e, where the classes are better-balanced than ever, the controller role is often considered dispensible.

It's never been perfect, but it has come pretty close on occasion. The important thing to remember is that there's more to balance than just combat.

The hardest part is balancing two classes that play the same role against each other - fighter vs barbarian, cleric vs druid, magic-user vs illusionist (or wizard vs sorcerer). Fighter vs wizard shouldn't be as hard since they should have different responsibilities in the party.

 

[Meophist]

As long as all of the classes play a useful role on the adventuring team, then the game is balanced.

Arguing about balance between classes is like arguing balance between positions on a football team. Are quarterbacks and running backs balanced? How about wide receivers and defensive linemen? All of those positions are needed in order to have a complete team, so arguing balance is pointless.

A D&D adventuring party should be like that. You should need a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue to have a complete party. Arguing whether fighters or wizards are better should be pointless because you should need them both.

I don't agree that they should all be needed in a "complete party". Players should have the freedom to play the way they want without being forced into the Cleric because the party lacks a healer, for example.

 

[Andor]

There are several ways to balance magic (by which I mean big, showy spells like Fireball or Prismatic Spray, not reasonable at-wills like MM or Ice Dagger) across time.

1e did it across the life of the character so that being a 1st level mage was a poor career choice when compared to, say, shark wrestler. However if you made it past 5th level you were a squishy god amoung men.

3e tried to buff the Fighter, and succeeded to an extent, especially with the Bo9S. The mistake they made was, I think, a legacy of the Vancian magic system. Magic still drove everything the party did however which led to the 15 minute adventuring work day, and was not pretty.

4e realized that you can have a few big vancian effects a day, combined with useful but not overpowered at-will abilities and make a balanced mage. Then they went a step too far and made everyone a mage and their little dog too.

So, 5e. I'd like to see the 5e mage built on the 4e model. A few big spells a day, but mostly limited to cool, but not powerful at-wills. There are two problems with this:

1) How do you balance a big flashy ability across time? The obvious answer is to have the at-will powers be weaker than the non-magic classes at-will abilities. IE: An ice dagger does less damage or hits less than a greatsword to the face does. Of course this can then lead to complaints (which we saw all the time back in the old days) that the wizard might as well not be there once out of big spells.

There are other ways to balance it though, which is to make the Wizard pay for his fun with some direct cost.

This can be an opportunity coat: E.G: Any Vancian spell cast shuts down all magical abilities for (level of spell) rounds as the Mage recuperates his personal mana store. So fire off that fireball and you're back to using a dagger for 3 rounds before you can cast another spell or use your magic feats.

It can be a direct cost. IE Pay level-of-spell d4 HP to cast a Vancian spell. Brutal but flavorful.

It can be a risk cost. EG: All Vancian spells have (at least) full round casting times so the Wizard always risks interruption. This is good in that the rest of the players then have buy-in for the big magic moment, since they need to protect the wizard for him to even think about casting his big spell. This way his big moment becomes a big moment for the whole team. The down side is, as I've said before, if your whole schtick is one moment of glory a day, it sucks to lose it to a lucky kobold with a rock.

2) If the Wizards (or Clerics) big Vancian spells are showstoppers, then this will tend to push you back into the 15 minute adventuring day. Once the big guns are gone, why risk pushing onward without a safety net? Just wait a day and get your net back. This can be offset by adventure design but that then straightjackets adventure design.

Not sure what to do about this one.

 

[Stormonu]

As long as all of the classes play a useful role on the adventuring team, then the game is balanced.

Arguing about balance between classes is like arguing balance between positions on a football team. Are quarterbacks and running backs balanced? How about wide receivers and defensive linemen? All of those positions are needed in order to have a complete team, so arguing balance is pointless.

A D&D adventuring party should be like that. You should need a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue to have a complete party. Arguing whether fighters or wizards are better should be pointless because you should need them both.

As an aside, sometimes I think the designers have been arguing to balance the football team and forgetting there's the whole high school.

 

[Plane Sailing]

A D&D adventuring party should be like that. You should need a fighter, cleric, wizard, and rogue to have a complete party. Arguing whether fighters or wizards are better should be pointless because you should need them both.

I don't think I could disagree more!

I'd hate a system which required certain character classes to be present otherwise you haven't got a 'complete party' which can be effective.

I love games where anyone can play what they like and you can have an effective party and have fun - which has been pretty much possible in most editions of D&D and in fact most RPGs.

In recent years I've noticed a trend of some people obsessing about party balance and related stuff, but y'know? It's never been an issue with any game I've played or known about (except that one game with the psion - wow, that was a do everything better than anyone class!)

Cheers

 

[WheresMyD20]

I don't agree that they should all be needed in a "complete party". Players should have the freedom to play the way they want without being forced into the Cleric because the party lacks a healer, for example.

Allowing players to "play what they want" means that all character classes need to be able to handle every role possible. You end up with all the character classes generally feeling the same.