[rant] Balance schmalance

[Oni]

I've played in games where other characters where a lot more powerful. Frankly it is not fun to sit there not being able to do much, while someone else takes care of business. It may work well in a book, but a game isn't a novel and it's not fun. So while game balance may not be of the greatest importance, I think you'd be mistaken to toss it out the windor or ignore it.

For me game balance is making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to have fun at the table.

 

[Nightfall]

I've played in games where other characters where a lot more powerful. Frankly it is not fun to sit there not being able to do much, while someone else takes care of business. It may work well in a book, but a game isn't a novel and it's not fun. So while game balance may not be of the greatest importance, I think you'd be mistaken to toss it out the windor or ignore it.

For me game balance is making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to have fun at the table.

Hey you did get to take out some demons...I think...and fly alot. I mean Falger WAS a great spellcaster.

 

[Bauglir]

Who ever said that all characters should be useful throughout their careers. Fantasy literature abounds with mismatched "unbalanced" characters. IMNSHO, rather than being "the important part of balance" it's one of the major flaws in the system for me. I like to play those useless spell-lobbers so I can savor the power later if I'm clever enough that they survive. Same with a tricky thief. All men are not created equal and neither should be characters!

D&D is neither fantasy literature nor real life. It's a game, and like any game it's important for everyone to have fun, and for many people that means contributing a fair share to the effectiveness of the party as a whole. It's not much fun in a combat-oriented game to be a rogue sneak attacking for maybe 30 or so damage, dealing with low hps, low BAB and the situational nature of sneak attack, in the same party as a frenzied berzerker who is dealing out 100+ damage with cleaves every round (and hitting on a 2)

 

[ciaran00]

Unintended player death (ie: the death of a player that occurs because you pumped too much, without your knowledge, into an encounter) is bad to deal with. Players losing their characters to stupid, ignoble deaths might force you to fudge your dice rolls, etc. This is bad practice. Instead, use CR, etc. to figure out how relatively powerful something is (it's not perfect, you're right... but it's much better than 2nd edition). I use the 50/50 rule: without any planning or scheming or tactical logic whatsoever, the players have a 50% chance of being killed by an encounter (parley is often an option).

In some ways, I couldn't really claim the lethality aspect if I randomly threw things at my players. However, I think that 75/25 odds or 90/10 odds can be overly frustrating... especially if your players find out that you didn't really bother doing any planning.

ciaran

 

[MusedFable]

I want a game balanced enough where I don’t have to think about if it’s balanced or not. Currently I run a game in FR (to lazy/busy for anything else) and random acts of balance have thrown the game in way to many tangents for me to list. The fact that the party thief almost got killed by trying to get a cat out of the tree says something about the problems of CR. Shame on me for not making sure the cat couldn’t maul an experienced adventurer before the gaming session. This forces me to have to study everything I throw at my group before hand, and that takes time (which I don’t have). I’d prefer if the system worked properly instead of making some things overly hard and others overly easy (and I’m not talking about EL, but just CR). If that player would have died from that cat’s attack I would have either an angry player or more storyline describing why the cat was so deadly.

 

[Tsyr]

I've played in games where other characters where a lot more powerful. Frankly it is not fun to sit there not being able to do much, while someone else takes care of business. It may work well in a book, but a game isn't a novel and it's not fun. So while game balance may not be of the greatest importance, I think you'd be mistaken to toss it out the windor or ignore it.

For me game balance is making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to have fun at the table.

Ditto.

I played for a long time in a game where the DM's brother was playing a half-giant that averaged about 5 levels higher than the next highest member of the party (And the GM started new characters at different levels, so we had, at one time, a party with a 5th level and a party with a 12th level at the same time). And mind you, this wasn't counting in LA for the half-giant.

It wasn't any fun. Particularly when the DM threw things at the party that the half-giant was the only one who could handle. But even when the stuff was lower level, it was no fun. My shaman would just manage to down one of the two orcs that attacked in in the battle and was ready to turn on the other, when the half giant would have killed a half-dozen or more, and was comming over to help finish my battle too.



Or ask anyone who has played a street rat or rogue scienctist in a Rifts game who was playing along side juicers, full conversion 'borgs, and glitterboy pilots.

It's just not fun.

http://www.planetadnd.com/download_.../humor/misc_humor/always_the_first_to_die.zip

That song says it best. (Warning, a little bit of Granny-Unfriendly language)

 

[TiQuinn]

The point is, whether the party is barely making it through the encounter, breezing through, expending precisely 20% of their resources to make it through, or running, as long as it's fun then who cares? Believe me, players really love to romp through low-level fodder more than anything. And running from the second encounter is at least as memorable.

Dying in the second encounter because the DM sicced a raging fire giant on a group of low level character is certainly memorable, though I doubt it will be fun for all except the most casual of players.

Who ever said that all characters should be useful throughout their careers. Fantasy literature abounds with mismatched "unbalanced" characters. IMNSHO, rather than being "the important part of balance" it's one of the major flaws in the system for me. I like to play those useless spell-lobbers so I can savor the power later if I'm clever enough that they survive. Same with a tricky thief. All men are not created equal and neither should be characters!

I think the players would like to have their characters be useful throughout their career. The DM is not an author. An author creates all the characters, decides who are the main characters and who are supporting characters, and presents their actions. Personally, I don't want to play squire or sidekick to another player who's character is King Arthur reborn. I think the most successful games showcase everyone.

 

[Buttercup]

Or it allows one character to overshadow the other characters and making it less fun for them.

This is the only consideration I have. I don't like to see some classes becomeing useless as the game progresses. I want everyone to have their chance to shine. As it stands, I'm not convinced the classes are balanced, but I'm not confident of my ability to fix the situation.

Balanced encounters? Hah! When you're using dice to determine the results of combat, anything can happen, challenge ratings notwithstanding. I've seen a party of orcs get lucky and nearly kill a group of 8 5th level characters when the dice rolls when bad. Conversely, I've seen a second level party of 4 completely annihilate a CR25 encounter, by using a creative solution and a bit of chutzpah.

 

[Bauglir]

Conversely, I've seen a second level party of 4 completely annihilate a CR25 encounter, by using a creative solution and a bit of chutzpah.

Now this is a story I'd like to hear..

 

[jgbrowning]

This is the only consideration I have. I don't like to see some classes becomeing useless as the game progresses. I want everyone to have their chance to shine. As it stands, I'm not convinced the classes are balanced, but I'm not confident of my ability to fix the situation.

Balanced encounters? Hah! When you're using dice to determine the results of combat, anything can happen, challenge ratings notwithstanding. I've seen a party of orcs get lucky and nearly kill a group of 8 5th level characters when the dice rolls when bad. Conversely, I've seen a second level party of 4 completely annihilate a CR25 encounter, by using a creative solution and a bit of chutzpah.

Bit of Chutzpah
You can do it! Now let them know you can do it!

Prerequisites: Insanity and a pair of brass one's.
Benefit: You can scare the bejubus out of creatures that should be able to squash you like a flea. They're convinced that you have the super-mega, uber-powerful, not-seen-since-the-wars-of-the-gods power.
Normal: You're dead.



joe b.