[rant] Balance schmalance

[hong]

Some players hope only to shine in melee. I shake my head reading the LG forums, where nearly everyone agrees that bards are useless (i.e., can't shine in melee). How sad that these players must never be presented with so few situations and conflicts outside combat!

Mmm, latte.

 

[MerricB]

Balance in combat is easy to achieve, and most desirable, because it's the most common activity in D&D for most players. Because we are superior players and have lots of role-playing, doesn't mean that the majority of players (especially new players) don't participate in a lot of combat.

Who am I kidding? I've been playing over 20 years, and I still have lots of combats!

Balance is most important for new players, and it's very desirable to exist for them. We do not want them becoming discouraged because the game actively discriminates against them.

For more experienced players, it's not so much an issue.

Cheers!

 

[William Ronald]

More on topic, at the last Chicago gameday in November, I had an encounter with some 5th (I think?) level characters -- six of them if I recall correctly, and Dagon, a CR 16 or so Baatezu Lord in Legions of Hell. I thought it was pretty obvious (both from my summary of the game before they even signed up) and the events that were happening in game that they had no chance to defeat this baby in combat, but they still had to make a few ineffectual attacks before they got the message. Actually it helped that William Ronald's character summoned a celestial giant bee to told it to attack. That way I could make comments like, "What are the stats on a celestial giant bee, anyway? Does a 57 attack roll hit it? Yeah? OK, it takes 41 points of damage. Is it still with us?" That kinda helped scare them into running. And it was better than a near TPK too.

Joshua, there were 5th level characters. As I recall, fairly confident characters who thought that their lives might be nearly over at the point Dagon showed up. For myself, I thought it was in character for my elven wizard Celebros to try to do something and then attempt a rescue.

I am not sure, but I think I might have summoned the celestial bee up before I figured it was as powerful as it was. Also, as I recall the way that my character was written, it seemed he was somewhat overly confident of himself. (The bee was sort of a test, and a distraction. If the bee could do anything, this was not what it seemed and was an impostor. The dead celestial bee convinced me that Celebros was no match for the partie's foes.)

In a sense, I think the characters were more than a bit panicked and the reactions were perhaps understandable. Mind you, the adventure worked out well after the ineffective attacks as we operated in a crisis mode and contributed to the enjoyable tension of the adventure. I think the sense of dread actually helped characters with strongly conflicting agendas work together.


In general, I have found that it is best to take the measure of your characters. Obviously, no party can handle all the threats. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

I think every character needs a chance to shine regularly in a campaign. If one character is always dominant in terms of what is accomplished, players can get bored and angry. Very few players want to feel that their characters are just along for the ride.

 

[Orius]

The other thing that throws balance out the window are player actions during the game, and how often players make stupid decisions that then make it seem the world is a more dangerous place than it really is. The example of the characters in a small town overhearing the rumor that there is a dragon in the countryside rampaging a few farms. As players go (thinking of the majority, not all of them), most will think the DM will tailor this to the characters and will automatically think that they can handle it. Then they go investigate, see that it's three times their size, and still attack it because they think the DM wouldn't really attack them with it. Then there is a TPK, and they blame the DM for unbalncing the game against them by attacking them with a creature that is too powerful for them to handle.

Ok, in this case, the problem isn't balance, the problem is that the players are metagame thinking. That is they assume the dragon is meant for them to fight, and that the DM isn't going to throw something at them that's over their head. These might also be players that like to be railroaded, so they hear the DM mention a dragon, figure that the next adventure, and get their characters killed.

Another example: I had a group just exit a cave in the hillside that a wizard teleported them into. After a brief fight inside the cave, they exited it and heard some rocks being moved above them. Over a small crest they see a Hill Giant, minding its own business, playing with some rocks. Then they see the Hill Giant playing with a goblin, and see him toss the goblin into its bag of rocks. This group of characters, 5 in all, averaged 3rd level. The Hill Giant had a CR of 8. As players go, they flat out attacked the creature because it was there. By the end of the battle, there were two survivors, one at -HP, the other three were dead, the Hill Giant was dead, and the two survivors had no way of carrying the 3 dead bodies with them to the nearest town, which they didn't know where it was anyways. Then this group got pissed at me because they felt I was unfair. I told them that their characters live in a WORLD, and in this WORLD things beyond their capacity to handle do exist. Plus, I told them I was testing their intelligence and see if they would actually run from something than attack it. They didn't like that too much. So, after attacking a Hill Giant that had absolutely no knowledge of their existence, the campaign ended right there. Was that my fault that they acted rashly and didn't think about it? I don't think it was.

In that case the party was just stupid. I've done stuff like that. In one game, as the party was trudging through a swamp, I put in a black dragon kicking the crap out of some lizard men off in the distance. They decided to stay hidden and hustle out of there.

On another occasion, a different party was traveling through a jungle, when they encountered a lizard folk village. I described the sound of drums, and smoke rising above the forest canopy in the distance before they got there. Then when they got closer, I described how the lizard folk were systematically butchering some tasloi to eat, and how the tasloi were screaming in mortal pain and terror. After I told them there were about 300 lizard folk in the village, they decided to stay hidden and head off, and not become tomorrow's meal.

 

[William Ronald]

Sometimes, it is best NOT to make dinner reservations.

Just because the PCs are heroes does not mean that the characters are invincible. In a campaign, a player should have a sense that there are some threats best dealt with either by such means as diplomacy or by making long term plans. (I think it is useful for players to have long term goals for their characters. Most of us have long-term goals in real life.)

 

[S'mon]

Literature and TV analogies have a weakness - how interesting the show was to watch does not translate into how well the show would have been to play through.

Think back a bit about Xena. Think about the ratio of screen time between Xena and Gabrielle. Most of each show was Xena on screen. There are frequently entire episodes where Gabrielle doesn't appear. If it had been an RPG, that's all time spent by Gabrielle's player sitting at the table doing nothing. Do you like sitting and waiting through hours of game where you don't do anything?

Well, those are like solo sessions where only one player attends. In most other RPGs - Call of Cthulu (BRP) or Traveller (most editions) combat ability is just one skill among many that a character can have, it's not necessarily the most useful skill - certainly not in Call of Cthulu - and a knowledge-based or diplomacy-based PC will get just as much screen time as a combat-based one. This definitely isn't the case in D&D. In D&D combat ability is THE defining characteristic of a character, everything else is ancillary.

 

[doghead]

Coming back to dnd after a long absence, it struck me how well developed it game was in general. It offered a great deal of character flexibilty with few system issues. There are some differences of opinion (as the long discussion of the appropriateness of +1LA for Half Ogres attests to), but overall it all holds together quite well. Not surprising given the 25+ years of play testing.

I do think that balance counts within a party. Its not much fun, as others have often mentioned, being constantly overshadowed. But I don't think that a setting should be completely tailored around the level of the group. (I have wondered how long a group would take to realise that "this is not a 3rd level dungeon!") Status Quo encounters should reflect the environment.

What has struck me more recently is how intergral the increasing power/toughness progression is. Its not realistic, but its there. Experienced characters will be more powerful and tougher than inexperienced ones. It hit me when I was considering how to create an experienced woodsman, skilled at tracking and survival but who wasn't a high HP/BAB character. {1}

You can't really create the talented young [insert character type] able to hang with more experienced characters. Nor can you really have a rather hopeless veteran [insert type]. Both common story characters. Other systems lend themselves to such mixes more easily. Its a bit of a pity, because I think it can be a good "thread" for a group to have a mix.

{1} If you have any suggestions, feel free to share.

 

[Flyspeck23]

What has struck me more recently is how intergral the increasing power/toughness progression is. Its not realistic, but its there. Experienced characters will be more powerful and tougher than inexperienced ones. It hit me when I was considering how to create an experienced woodsman, skilled at tracking and survival but who wasn't a high HP/BAB character.

Try the Expert. Or even Commoner. The NPC classes. Or would the BAB still be too high that way?

You can't really create the talented young [insert character type] able to hang with more experienced characters. Nor can you really have a rather hopeless veteran [insert type]. Both common story characters. Other systems lend themselves to such mixes more easily. Its a bit of a pity, because I think it can be a good "thread" for a group to have a mix.

The "problem" (if you think of it lies in D&D's power curve. A level 6 fighter will be much more powerful than (for example) a level 3 fighter. This might not be the case in other systems.
Master and apprentice type of characters as adventurers might work if they're just one (or maybe two) levels apart from each other. [Character death could lower an individual's level below the level of her companions, so one less shouldn't be that much of a problem (although it is .)]

 

[Deadguy]

I think the reason that you find it difficult to build such a character in D&D, doghead, is that it simply isn't the model that D&D uses. The presumption built into the design for PCs is that greater competence equates to greater level. Thus the skilled woodsman is likely a moderate level Rogue or Ranger. Of course, for NPCs there's not requirement to follow the same principles. If you want a skilled woodsman with a BAB of +2, 6 hit points and a Survival skill of +15, then go for it! It isn't wrong!

If you would rather stick more closely to the rules then don't underestimate the effects of poor ability scores. The old warrior might be level 7, but if he has a Strength of 5 and a Constitution of 6, he'll be attacking at +4 and have on average only about 17 hps.

As for needing better skills, then Skill Focus and the combined skills bonuses (cf. Alertness) can quckly pump up a skill by 5. Combined with some appropriate synergies a low level NPC that focusses on a specific skill can be really rather competent.

 

[Umbran]

But D&D rules attempt to balance characters only in combat.

That's thoroughly untrue.

Let's look at the D&D Ranger for a moment, and how it changed moving from 3e to 3.5e...

The 3e ranger was "front loaded" - it got lots of useful combat stuff at first level, less later on. So, to balance it better, they dropped the hit die down, shifted some abilities to later levels, and tightened up thir armor choices a bit.

But then, they added skill points. But outside of an occasional Tumble or Concentration check, skills are rarely used in combat. Ergo, the addition of the skill points was not intended to balance them in combat, but instead to give them some more abilites outside of combat to compensate for lost combat effectiveness.

Combat balance is the easiest to quantify, so it is the one that folks look at most. However, there's been quite a reasonable attempt to use a broad definition of "balance". They've tried to make it so that any particular character choice will be as effective as any other overall, in a long and varied campaign.

The Fighter is the master of martial prowess. The Bard is not. To compensate, the bard has many skill points and access to social skills. The bard is not intended to be terribly effective in combat. He's only supposed to hold his own, so that he can later on shine in a social encounter.