Older Editions and "Balance" when compared to 3.5

[Raven Crowking]

ExploderWizard shows much wisdom.......!

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Another place where OD&D/1E/2E does a better job at balance than 3E/3.5E is niche protection and everyone having a specific role to play. In older editions:

1. Fighters(and Paladins/Rangers/ect) completely outclassed other classes at trading hits with big sacks of HP with sharp claws. It wasn't even close.
2. No other class could match the utility of Thief skills
3. Wizards had a clear role as artillery and problem solvers, and their role was important enough and their resources limited enough that they had a responsibility to fill it and not dabble in other people's stuff. In addition, many monsters where heavily and unavoidably resistant to magic.
4. Clerics healed.

In 3E/3.5E:

1. Monster HP inflation lessened the impact and effectiveness of the Fighting classes offense, and as the levels increase the Fighter becomes more and more fragile thanks to monster offense increasing faster than his defenses and his weak saves compared to the earlier editions Fighter who was fairly invincible at high levels.
2. Low level Wizard spells do a better job at the Thieving type skills, and at higher levels wands and scrolls become trivial.
3. The increased effectiveness of Save or Die effects combined with the reduced effectiveness of damage spells reduced the resources a Wizard needed to contribute to offensive magic. 3E/3.5E Wizards also typically face fewer encounters between rests, and have bonus spells from high Intelligence. Combine this with greater access to scrolls and wands, and the Wizard can now do it all by itself without much hassle. There were also such strong tools against magic resistant monsters that a well designed Wizard wasn't really hassled by them.
4. The most efficient form of healing in 3E/3.5E is not the Cleric, but the Wand of Cure LIght Wounds. On the other hand, with a modest investment, Clerics and Druids can nearly match the Fighter classes as meat shields, and combine the meat shield role with a big pile of spells for utility the Fighting classes can't hope to match.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I don't think this is true (or at least it certainly didn't start out as true). As you remember, 3.0e introduced prestige classes in the DMG as optional choices that a DM might want to introduce into his campaign to give extra campaign specific flavour and options.

Now, to my mind it is unfortunate that WotC went hog-wild in producing hundreds of 'prestige classes' which became seen as player focused PC powerup options.

It certainly became a problem with balance when people cherry-picked their way through certain prestige classes (as NewJeffCT said), and the problem existed because of what prestige classes eventually became... but I don't think that they were (or were intended to be) a core concept of the game. The last 3e campaign I played in went from 1st to 20th level without any prestige classes; it was core rules (phb, dmg) + psionics only, no prestige classes allowed. I would say that core concepts of the game couldn't be ommitted - feats, skills, multiclassing etc.

Cheers

The thing is, this sort of character building isn't always about prestige classes. One of the most notorious examples of imbalance is the Druid class, and aside from a ridiculously broken Eberron prestige class no sane DM allows the the Druid is best served by sticking with the base Druid class all the way to 20. Its nearly the same with Clerics and Wizards, who while they become powered up by Prestige Classes where they sacrifice little to nothing to enter, don't lose a lot by just sticking with the base class.

Also, in a more general sense, building a strong character was hardwired into the game. Monte Cook discussed the concept of having good and bad options hardwired into the system, making character building(like deck building in M:tG) a game in and of itself.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Why is there this endless obsession with "play balance"?

"Oh boo hoo my 1st level magic user isn't calling down a rain of pure antimatter every combat segment, wah."

Play balance COMES FROM HOW YOU PLAY - DM and players both. Sitting around and asking the rules to prettyplease make sure everyone is a special snowflake is d-u-m-b dumb.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Why is there this endless obsession with "play balance"?

"Oh boo hoo my 1st level magic user isn't calling down a rain of pure antimatter every combat segment, wah."

Play balance COMES FROM HOW YOU PLAY - DM and players both. Sitting around and asking the rules to prettyplease make sure everyone is a special snowflake is d-u-m-b dumb.

Play balance becomes an obsession when the lack of it damages or ruins your game. This wasn't a big problem in my experience pre-3E, but became a significant problem during 3E/3.5E. The difference in my opinion was that game smashing imbalance in OD&D/1E/2E required the player to be a real jerk(munchkinism, cheating, Bladesinger) and/or the DM being weak or stupid. Preferably both. In 3E, a player could imbalance the game without necessarily being a jerk, and anything short of a master DM could have problems maintaining balance in a game with optimizing players. Optimizing is not on the same level of douchebaggery as cheating and munchkinism, and is actively encouraged by the 3.5E system.

I don't consider playing a vanilla Druid and choosing the smart options and playing well being a jerk, and a well built and played vanilla Druid will cause balance problems.


On a side note, I don't think the Wizard example is a good analogy. A Wizard having one spell and sitting on their hands for the rest of the night is a boredom issue more than a balance issue.

 

[NewJeffCT]

When comparing pre- 3X editions to older editions lets remember a few facts about balance.

1) The older editions never claimed to be balanced out of the box, especially combat balanced between PC's.

True, it never claimed to be balanced - however, this thread was started to discuss older editions and balance, and many have responded on here stating that 1E and 2E were more balanced.

2) The game rules instructed the DM to consider game balance before permitting new material in the game.

I believe that is stated for 3E and 4E as well.

3) Combat was not the only assumed measure of balance.

True, in 2E you had NWPs and 3E and 4E have skills. However, role-playing has always been group specific and you can have it or not have it in any edition. Combat is something that can be quantified, though. A group that favors more roleplaying over hack-n-slash isn't suddenly going to change its stripes by switching from 1E to 3E or from 4E to 2E or any which way.

4) Any RPG system that claims to be balanced out of the box will become the proverbial gauntlet thrown down before powergamers and rules lawyers everywhere. It WILL fail sooner or later. This cycle just becomes the RPG version of the malware/antivirus escalation which is endless.

True, but powergaming has existed in every edition of D&D, and I know my old group DM had a whole notebook full of house rules for 2E, whereas had very little for 3E, and I did not have many for 3.5.

5) Looking at older systems and expecting to see the types of balance concerns that preoccupy the minds of so many players today is pointless madness.

Again, this is a thread about older editions and balance.

6) A game with rules written to be played with and interpreted by people is best balanced by those people. Such balance is fluid, flexible and much harder to hack than RAW code.

As I stated above, we had far more house rules back in 2E days than we did with 3E and 3.5, and those house rules were often to maintain a balance in game. That said, because we had grown up playing 1E and 2E, a lot of these rules and house rules were 2nd nature to us.

 

[thedungeondelver]

On a side note, I don't think the Wizard example is a good analogy. A Wizard having one spell and sitting on their hands for the rest of the night is a boredom issue more than a balance issue.

I wasn't talking about wizards though; I was referring to prestidigitators. Wizards have 4 1st, 4 2nd, 4 3rd, 3 4th and 3 5th level spells.

Wizards have PLENTY to do.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I wasn't talking about wizards though; I was referring to prestidigitators. Wizards have 4 1st, 4 2nd, 4 3rd, 3 4th and 3 5th level spells.

Wizards have PLENTY to do.

Semantics

A 1st level Wizard(what you are discussing) had one spell, two if specialized or playing 3E/3.5, or three if specialized and playing 3E/3.5E.

A creative player could find things to do when the spells ran out, but not all of us are that gifted.

Compare this to the 4E level 1 Wizard who has four Cantrips and two(three if Human) At-Wills they can cast all day long, every round.

Even your name level Wizard can't burn a 15ft by 15ft area every six seconds for 24 hours straight.


And again, this isn't a balance issue. Its a having something to do issue.

 

[Umbran]

And again, this isn't a balance issue. Its a having something to do issue.

"Balance" is a word with may possible definitions in the RPG context.

To me, if one of your party members is frequently sitting around unable to assist in a combat, needing to be protected - acting as as a tactical burden and detriment, rather than a resource - that's a balance issue. Same goes for other scenarios outside of combat, honestly.

 

[billd91]

And again, this isn't a balance issue. Its a having something to do issue.

For good or ill, some people consider this a balance issue - as in balance of fun things to do inherently part of the class and between players at the table. As Umbran observes, balance means a whole lot of different things to different people and between different editions of the game.

I'd buy into the idea that general balance in opportunities to have fun at the table, no matter what your class, is probably the most important balance for an RPG to have, but I wouldn't necessarily buy into the idea that those things have to be built into the class or left to it via niche protection.