The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[Goblyn]

To be fair, a lot of people do find those games quite boring. Note that that in no way means a game is bad or wanting. I think the real crux of the issue is that TTRPGs are too complex for one to strive for mathematical 'balance' and have any reasonable expectation of success.

 

[Sacrosanct]

No, in the beginning was the fighting man, doing 1d6 damage (regardless of weapon). Differences in weapon damage and bonuses to damage from strength came in later supplements. If you’re going to have a pretense of authority, do your research.

That was my immediate thought when reading it as well. My second thought was “another thread of him incessantly complaining about the game”. I await the “I love 5e, but I should be able to constructively criticize can’t i?” Response. I don’t buy it of course, because his feedback has not only never been positive, but it’s been outright offensive and attacking designers and fans of the game for being lazy and apologists.

I don’t get it, to be honest. If you hate something so much, why do you keep talking about it? For the attention? Because there aren’t nearly as many posters on the forums of games you think are great so you want the biggest audience?

 

[Patrick McGill]

I highly doubt this will be the final word. All the RPG forums would shut down without this frankly tangential side of the games, wherein experts white room a million possibilities that hardly ever happen at a real table.

I play a lot of martial characters. I've played a champion without feats. I have never felt like I was holding the group back or wasn't holding my own. I had, in fact, had a lot of amazing moments of fun and was quite often the killing blow on many monsters. Now, I didn't measure the DPR of the group. I didn't record every attack and try to figure out if someone was doing more damage in a session on average than other folks. I didn't need to, though, because there didn't seem to be a problem. We weren't min maxers or optimisers by any means, but we did put our ability scores where they were most needed for the class and build.

I have also played a Cavalier with a shield and a lance on horseback and it was a super amount of fun. Charging and just crushing an enemy with a lance crit, and not having to sacrifice my shield AC bonus to wield a d12 weapon was delicious.

As has been repeated here and everywhere when you start to white room and go by the numbers without accounting for the near endless contexts and circumstances I think makes issues seem a lot bigger than they ever will be at the table.

And that's (not) my final word on the subject.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

@CapnZapp is right. While I may not share his pessimism, I can find no fault with his observations.

 

[Dausuul]

Right. So, chess and go are boring games. Gotcha. We should let the millions of people who play them know that they're actually bored, no?

(Sorry for the snark, but the statement was a little out there.)

Chess is not perfectly balanced. White wins around 55% of the time, due to the advantage of moving first.

Perfect balance is very difficult to achieve.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm getting the impression the whole edition is helplessly lopsided and that there is no easy fix

Welcome to D&D.

I'm getting the sinking feeling that in order to achieve a balanced edition, most if not all of the below is needed:
* nerf or re-price feats
* nerf cantrips (with or without feats).
* nerf ranged attacks more than melee ones. Thrown attacks can be treated as melee ones.
* start player characters with lower scores. If the distance to 20 becomes greater, feats become more expensive.
* regulate long rests ie remove the players' power to decide for themselves when and where to rest; in order to reinstate the challenge level of the game.
(Since the alternative is to always consider a challenging fight in isolation)
It's a tall order.

Any incremental improvement to 5e is a tall order. It's an evergreen core edition - any change, even small changes, even changes strictly for the better, threaten that and could get the edition war rolling again. Brand image is everything and 5e has salvaged D&D's image. No longer is it crazy nerds flaming eachother in forums, it's happy nerds rolling dice on youtube.

the average age of players is higher for 5e than for other editions.

Where did you find that factoid? (Or is it one of the 80% of statistics that are just made up to get a point across?)

It's plausible on one hand: 5e is clearly attracting returning players from the fad years, who are in their 40s & 50s.
It's implausible OTOH: 5e is attracting an new generation of players, who tend to be quite a bit younger - born this millennium, even.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Only thing worth mentioning:
limiting agonizing blast to 30ft.

I went ahead and limited every ranged damage bonus to 30ft. Helps a lot for balancing and goes both ways.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Chess is not perfectly balanced. White wins around 55% of the time, due to the advantage of moving first.

Perfect balance is very difficult to achieve.

Yep. Basically any game with a choice that means something to the game will be imbalanced.

 

[Umbran]

I understand the point, but you're kinda comparing apples to oranges there.

Yes and no. And the important bit is in the phrase a couple of sentences onwards: "the fun taken out of the game".

Here is the point. There is no "THE fun". Fun is *NOT SINGULAR*. There are bundles of different types of fun, and some of them are, alas, mutually exclusive. Chess isn't chess if the sides are not perfectly balanced, because the fun is in your play, not in the power of the pieces.

So, there are choices to be made in game design, and no choices are going to be perfect for everyone. Start from there - that the game is going to have to be a compromise, and you can then have a more cogent discussion about what compromises should be made, and why, rather than start from an uncompromising position that doesn't really admit any room for discussion.

Flat imperatives of "No, this *cannot* be done" or "Yes, this *must* be done exactly this way" are conversation enders, not starters.

 

[TwoSix]

1) Remove Agonizing Blast. Any other feature that gives +stat mod to cantrips (like Dragon Sorcerers) is modified to not do that, 1st level spells +only. Remove Booming Blade/Greenflame Blade. Cantrip damage scales with class level, not character level. Casters should fall back on at-will damage as a last resort. If the Elf Wizard does better damage with their long bow than with Fire Bolt, that's awesome.

2) Remove any feat that favors using one weapon type or style over another. (Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, Great Weapon Master, Dual Wielder.) Martials should be versatile. If you want a fighter that's a master of one weapon, roleplay him that way. (Weapon Specialization has been problematic since BECMI).

3) Give fighters, paladins, and rangers access to every fighting style at level 1 or 2, respectively. Makes them versatile, and gives them a baseline superiority in weapon attacks to non-warriors. Give Barbarians Dueling, Dual Wielding, and Great Weapon Fighter fighting styles at level 2. Give champion fighters something at level 10 to compensate. Everyone will want to dip Fighter 1, but considering Fighters are the Honda Civic of D&D, I don't see that as a problem.

There. Damage scaled down to a better baseline, and martials exceed casters easily in baseline capability. Make some new feats and spells, and maybe some new magic items, to balance to taste.