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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tom B1" data-source="post: 7949060" data-attributes="member: 6879023">I take it y our own group or groups then never go beyond 5 players? It's pretty hard to keep that distinction and let players create a character THEY want when numbers exceed 5. I think the most we ever played with, over the course of 20 years in the same campaign world, was 12. But 7-9 was altogether unsurprising on any given day. Just like how you adapt in smaller parties (multi-class characters, have PCs run multiple characters, or have a GM run some NPCs with the group - of which I actually think multi-class is the LEAST troublesome), in larger parties, one scales out. Our group at times included: Swashbuckler/RogueWizard (Necromancer but not officially as that would be illegal)War Cleric 1War Cleric 2Moon ClericPaladin of Moon ClericPaladin of the War GodFighter/MarshalPsionicist/ThiefFighter/Magic UserFighter (Knight)/MarshalFighterFire MagePaladin of the God of OrderBardFighterFighter (Knight)Fighter (Knight)Wizard (Elementalist - Fire)NPCs that Travelled with the Team time to timeRanger (Henchman)Lizardman FighterFighterFiighterNow, you'd think that two Clerics at once, or three, would really be dimming each other's spotlight, but it wasn't that noticeable most of the time. Frankly the two War Clerics (of the same War God) got into a situation of a schism (each thought the other wasn't living according to the tenets of the faith). Because we restricted spell lists by God for flavour, having Clerics or Paladins of different Gods brought a lot of different things to the table. Similarly, all of our wizards were specialists (except the fighter/Magic User) and thus had very different spell lists. The Bard and the Fighter/Magic User usually had a different spell list than the Necromancer or the Fire Mage and tended to create or collect spells and items of different thematic nature and practical utility. Recons and Infiltrations ran with usually the Bard and the Swashbuckler/Rogue and at times the Psionicist/Thief. The 'hard shell' and 'shock' element were Fighters, Knights, etc. The Clerics handled multiple concurrent healing cases (but weren't as good as a Cleric of the God of Healing but their Clerics were hardcore pacifists), trap stuff was dealt with by a mix of Clerics/Wizarrds/Rogue types. The Bard and Fighter/Marshal and the War Clerics were about defensive buffs, although the Necromancer eventually started creating disposable energy buffs for the sneak-and-peak squad because they complained about his artillery landing on them when he didn't know where they were.Fights usually had either a lot of mooks/goons/minions and some tough guys, one to three really big baddies, or a pile of just moderately dangerous threats (Drow was a popular ongoing enemy force, but so were advanced Minotaurs, True Dragons and their minions (Draconians), and so on). When you have a bunch of people at the table (more than 4 or at most 5), you learn to keep things moving, and the group as a whole agrees to generally limit splitting the party (recon was necessary, but it was usually somewhat expeditious and still involved a few players once the Clerics and Wizard types could scry or look for Omens).  You also understand that the team survives as a group in all cases. The times that we had partial PKs was because people got stupid ('Hey, we're fully engaged at the front, let's open some new doors at the back and trigger some new foes...'). The fights usually saw people down. At lower levels, that often enough meant deaths. At medium to high, they usually got stabilized and helped (eventually). Without the hard ring, the mages wouldn't have lived (even once they got mobile and protected against ranged stuff, enemies like Drow could end up beside them). Without the Clerics combined defensive power, the large number of foes would often have swamped the team. Their ability to raise berms and walls and channelize the enemy as well as to contribute in fights or help keep the Wizards un-fatigued (we used fatiguing magic and a flexible spell point system from Players Option and then later equivalents) and heal them when they got scuffed, and the arcane casters were all about versatility, artillery, and counter-enemy arcane caster duty. Rogues would do recon and were flankers and strikers or sometimes deep penetration folk who tried to get to enemy casters/leaders.We ran sessions with numbers of 6-9 fairly regularly, but we played with as few as 3, or as many as 12. I don't ever recall anyone in the group ever making a big issue over game balance, even with:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">flexible spell point magic balanced by fatiguing casting</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">feat stacks when we were in our 3.5 era</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">very customized classes from Players Option 2E when we were in that phase,</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">when we started in AD&D which had some allegedly serious balance issues with Cavaliers, Psionics, etc</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Varied spell lists by gods (but expansive)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">NPCs presence in the team (at some points, the party figured they needed some protection for the key casters, but didn't want to tie down the clercis, so for quite a few levels, NPC body guards for the key arcane casters was normal)</li> </ul>When we played with small numbers, we could do more individualized play. We also supported doing some separated-from-the-party stuff in play by post so it was resolved between sessions. When we had big crowds, it was all about a few key players helping the GM by moving the team along and ensuring people didn't dally in combats. We played from AD&D, through the red 'Kit book' era, into 2E D&D, then into Skills and Powers, then into 3.5 edition, and now 5E. I think the last time I counted, we'd had maybe 25 different players in and out at times, with a core of 7 or 8. Technically, we had a hiatus in the early 2000s for a while, but we're back in that world now via VTT and some kids now playing. I honestly can't estimate the number of hours at the table - somewhere in between 40 a year and likely 120+ a year. So that's probably heading towards 1000-1200 overall now.All that is to say, I've seen the skewed mechanics in every version, but if the players are encouraged to focus on story and group success, the only 'game balance' I need to worry about is whether the group as a whole has a good challenge day to day, no matter the size. I got pretty good at that. No version of the game was unflawed. Generally, they improved stuff and broke others (bizarre attribute bonuses, the original Cavalier gave way to things like Feat stacking and free casting and so on as you went between versions). Think of this: Every game is complex beyond a simple boardgame and thus we have so many different ways to examine balance and however many you look at and try to balance against each other, you'll miss some. And every patch will break something else. So at some point, it isn't laziness to not fix the rules. It's WISDOM that every set will be broken in someone's eyes in some scenario, but 95% of them can be worked around by focus on group success and the shared story. Every flawed version of D&D gave us many, many hours (and many, many, many person-hours) of great fun and great memories.The ONLY time I think I ever changed a rule with any particular reference to game balance was chucking psionics. That wasn't because it was imbalanced (it sure as heck was in a world where the game engine didn't provide wholehearted integration with spells and items and class features to allow others to deal with psionics at least somewhat), it was mostly because it was a very weak system in that it had never been fully explored period - psionic items, interactions with other class abilities, etc. all were just not there and it provided yet a third or 4th sort of magical sourcing effectively and we found ourselves having so many unanswered questions even the player running the very potent psionic/thief combo agreed it was more time consuming and frustrating for everyone than it ought to have been. So we let that go and let him re-class. I never changed game mechanics for balance beyond balancing open spell casting (spell points) with fatiguing casting. That one seemed obvious and worked well. Oh, I lied... we removed and early AD&D critical hit system we loved/hated because it could just kill you... and we realized people had invested time into their characters so that should not be a 20 followed by a high 90s percentile role. It made for some heroic sessions of death and sacrifice, but after a year or 18 months, we toned down criticals (but that was with everyone's agreement - not a cross class balance thing). Other people seem to regularly worry about game balance because they have an illusion that it is possible and that every fix they put in isn't just bending the fabric of the game in another direction that will have its own flaws. That may also be driven by people playing set piece, 3-act, railroad plot modules with specific enemies that the GM naively thinks will be a good match for any party mix and player mix that shows up. That's never been true, but the harder a GM tries to hew to it, the more frustrated they'll get thinking about this or that aspect of this or that rule or character build being unbalanced IME. Sandbox gaming and nuggest & actors and a GM who has the experience to adjust foes well before the encounters for his team but can also tweak in play invisibly to get best challenge/lethality balance.... that's a much more adaptable mode and play balance is only discussed as how the party is enjoying its challenges as a group and how the story is unfolding (driven by player agency, not pre-assumed endings and plots).</blockquote>

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